THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


ENGLISH  MEN   OF   LETTERS 

EDITED   BT  JOHN  MORLET 

MARIA   EDGEIFORTH 


■>?■ 


■'!5^)<^° 


ENGLISH   MEN  OF   LETTERS 


MARIA    EDGEWORTH 


BY   THE 


HON.  EMILY    LAWLESS 


NeiD  gork 
THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1905 


AU  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1904, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  July,  1904.      Reprinted 
April,  1905. 


NorfajoDtJ  ^rraa 

J.  8.  Cuahing  &  Co.  ~  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Iforwoud,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

All  the  letters  of  Miss  Edgeworth  in  full-sized  type 
to  be  found  in  the  following  pages  are  new,  the  greater 
number  having  not  only  never  before  been  published, 
but  not  even  printed.  For  permission  to  make  use 
of  them,  as  well  as  for  much  invaluable  advice  in  the 
course  of  writing  this  book,  I  am  indebted  to  the 
kindness  of  Mrs.  Arthur  Butler  (the  daughter  of  Miss 
Edgeworth's  youngest  brother,  Michael  Pakenham), 
who  has  allowed  me  to  read  over  a  number  of 
letters  still  in  her  possession  in  ms.,  and  to  select 
those  which  seemed  to  me  of  most  interest.  For 
permission  to  make  use  of  the  privately  printed  fam- 
ily Memoir  of  Miss  Edgeworth  I  am  further  indebted 
to  Mrs=  Arthur  Butler,  and  in  addition  to  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  two  nephews.  Professor  F.  Y.  Edgeworth,  of 
All  Souls'  College,  Oxford,  and  Mr.  Eroles  Edgeworth, 
the  present  owner  of  Edgeworthstown. 

E.  L. 

Hazelhatch,  Gomshall, 

Surrey,  April  1904. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

Eaelt  Life 1 

CHAPTER  II 
Richard  Lovell  Edgeworth 18 

CHAPTER  ni 
Father  and  Daughter .31 

CHAPTER   IV 
Arrival  in  Ireland  —  First  Books      .        .        .        .44' 

CHAPTER  V 
Disturbed  Days 59 

CHAPTER  VI 
Ninety-Eight    .        , 68 

CHAPTER   VII 

"Castle  Rackrent  "  —  Irish  Letters  ...      86 

vii 


viu  MARIA   EDGE  WORTH 

CHAPTER  VIII 

PAGE 

"Belinda"  —  Visit  to  Paris 98 

CHAPTER  IX 
Middle  Life 113 

CHAPTER  X 

"Ennui"  —  "  The  Absentee  "  —  "  Ormond  "       .         .     127 

CHAPTER  XI 

"Memoir  of  R.  L.  Edgeworth  "  — The  "  Quarterly  " 
—  Paris  —  Geneva 146 

CHAPTER  XII 
Eriendship  with  Scott 162 

CHAPTER  XIII 
Later  Life 180 

CHAPTER  XIV 
Conclusion 210 

Index 215 


MARIA  EDGEWORTH 


MAKIA  EDGEWORTH 


CHAPTER  I 

EARLY    LIFE 

It  is  as  the  author  of  Irish  books  that  Maria  Edge- 
worth's  fame  stands  surest,  and  it  is  upon  this  aspect 
that  her  present  biographer  mainly  relies  in  venturing 
to  set  foot  upon  a  field  which  has  already  been  ex- 
plored by  not  a  few  able  pilgrims.  The  history  of  the 
Edgeworth  family,  especially  of  that  very  remarkable 
personage  Mr.  Richard  Lovell  Edgeworth,  his  com- 
plicated marriage  arrangements,  his  relations  with 
his  daughter  Maria,  her  submissiveness  to  his  views 
of  literature,  and  the  further  question  of  how  far  that 
submissiveness  has,  or  has  not,  injured  her  own  posi- 
tion as  an  author,  —  all  this  has  formed  the  theme  of 
a  good  many  capable  pens.  It  happens,  however,  that 
all  who  have  occupied  themselves  with  Maria  Edge- 
worth  have,  so  far  as  my  researches  have  gone,  been 
English;  consequently  the  more  purely  Irish  side  of 
her  writings,  as  well  as  the  influence  which  those 
writings  have  exercised  in  Ireland  itself,  have  either 
been  neglected,  or  been  treated  as  merely  incidental. 
There  is  little  in  Mr.  Hare's  two  volumes  that  would 
enable  a  reader  to  realise  the  quite  exceptional  affection 

B  1 


2  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

felt  by  all  the  members  of  the  Edgeworth  family  for 
their  Irish  home.  In  the  earlier  Life  by  Miss  Zimmern, 
published  in  the  "  Eminent  Women  "  series,  the  lack 
of  interest  in  this  part  of  the  subject  is  yet  plainer  — 
may  almost  be  said  to  go  to  the  length  of  antipathy. 
Two  extracts  will  sufiice  to  illustrate  this.  The  first 
concerns  Ireland  as  a  whole :  — 

"  Ireland  is  not  amongst  those  countries  that  arouse  in  the 
hearts  of  strangers  a  desire  to  pitch  their  tents,  and  to  judge 
from  the  readiness  with  which  her  own  children  leave  her, 
we  cannot  suppose  that  they  find  her  a  fascinating  land. 
And  little  wonder,  when  we  consider  the  state  of  ferment  and 
disorder  which  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  has  always  prevailed 
there." 

The  next  concerns  County  Longford :  — 

"  Neither  was  there  much  congenial  society.  The  Edge- 
worths  had  no  liking  for  the  country  gentlemen  who  spent 
their  lives  in  shooting,  hunting,  and  carousing ;  booby  squires 
who  did  not  even  know  that  their  position  put  duties  upon 
them.  Formal  dinners,  and  long  sittings,  with  the  smallest 
of  small  talk,  were  the  order  of  the  day  and  night.  They 
were,  however,  fortunate  in  finding  in  this  social  wilderness 
some  few  persons  really  worth  knowing,  chief  among  whom 
were  the  families  resident  at  Pakenham  Hall  and  Castle 
Forbes." 

The  last  remark  is  perfectly  true.  Pakenham  Hall 
and  Castle  Forbes  were  both  sources  of  great  enjoy- 
ment to  all  the  Edgeworth  family,  and  especially  to 
Maria.  Apart  from  this  there  were,  however,  allevia- 
tions. Moreover,  County  Longford,  even  County  Long- 
ford in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  Kebellion 
of  '98,  was  not  quite  so  deplorably  dismal  a  place  to 
live  in  as  the  foregoing  extract  would  imply.  There 
is  an  unmistakable  stamp  of  unfamiliarity  about  the 


I.]  EARLY  LIFE  3 

whole  picture  —  "booby  squires,"  "formal  dinners," 
and  "  small  talk,"  not  being  any  of  them  details  which 
bring  Ireland  particularly  vividly  before  the  mind. 
In  such  matters  the  personal  bias  no  doubt  counts  for 
a  good  deal,  and  —  far  from  regarding  her  as  having 
been  too  deeply  immersed  in  any  Irish  "  social  wilder- 
ness "  —  the  worst  deprivation  which,  in  the  opinion 
of  her  present  biographer,  Maria  Edgeworth  had  to  en- 
dure, was  that  no  part  of  her  childhood,  save  for  a  brief 
time  when  she  was  about  eight  years  old,  ever  was 
spent  in  Ireland.  This  is  a  point  which  will  have  to 
be  returned  to  later,  so  only  needs  to  be  touched  upon 
here,  before  going  on  to  consider  the  few,  and  not  par- 
ticularly interesting,  facts  which  have  survived  with 
regard  to  her  infancy  and  early  girlhood. 

She  was  born  on  the  first  day  of  the  year  1767,  at 
the  house  of  her  mother's  father,  Mr.  Elers,  at  Black 
Bourton,  some  fourteen  miles  from  Oxford,  her  father 
and  mother  having  been  married  while  the  former  was 
still  an  undergraduate,  and  under  nineteen  years  of  age. 
How  far  the  failure  of  that  marriage  is  to  be  ascribed 
to  this  circumstance  is  an  open  question.  What  is 
quite  certain  is  that,  for  a  man  who  afterwards  rather 
distinguished  himself  as  a  husband,  Mr.  Edgeworth's 
fijst  dSbut  in  that  character  cannot  be  called  brilliant. 
Upon  whichever  pair  of  shoulders  the  blame  ought  to 
lie,  by  general  consent  the  marriage  was  far  from  a 
success.  Five  children  were  born  of  it,  a  son  Richard, 
in  1766,  Maria  herself,  as  stated,  in  1767,  two  daughters, 
Anna  and  Emmeline,  and  an  infant  which  died  young. 
Shortly  after  the  birth  of  her  last  child  Mrs.  Edge- 
worth  herself  died,  at  the  house  of  her  aunts,  the  Miss 
Blakes,  in  Great  Russell  Street.     It  has  been  noted 


4  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

with  some  surprise  how  casual,  almost  indifferent,  the 
references  to  her  own  mother  were  apt  to  be,  on  the 
part  of  one,  not  only  so  affectionate,  but  so  invariably 
dutiful  as  Maria  Edgeworth.  At  the  time  of  that 
mother's  death  she  was,  it  must  be  remembered, 
barely  six  years  old,  and  she  recalled  little  of  the 
event  beyond  the  fact  of  having  been  taken  into  the 
bedroom  to  receive  the  poor  woman's  dying  kiss.  It 
followed  that  her  first  definite  impressions  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  word  "mother"  came  to  be  associated, 
not  with  the  rather  depressed  and  sickly  woman  whom 
she  had  first  called  by  that  name,  but  with  the  young 
and  remarkably  pretty  stepmother,  whose  advent  upon 
the  scene  was  only  delayed  about  four  months. 

The  beauty  of  this  new  mother.  Miss  Honora 
Sneyd,  is  always  spoken  of  enthusiastically  by  all  who 
have  occasion  to  mention  her  name.  An  anecdote 
is  told  of  the  small  Maria,  when  about  seven  years  old, 
standing  beside  her  stepmother's  dressing-table,  and 
looking  up  in  her  face  with  a  sudden  and  irresistible 
impression  of  "  How  beautiful !  "  Apart  from  such 
spontaneous  tributes,  her  submissiveness  as  a  daughter 
knew  no  bounds,  not  only  towards  this  stepmother, 
who,  arriving  on  the  scene  when  she  was  a  small  child, 
would  naturally  receive  it,  but  also  —  where  it  seems 
scarcely  equally  inevitable  —  to  a  succession  of  other 
stepmothers,  the  latest  of  whom  was  actually  younger 
than  herself,  and  who  arrived  in  a  house  of  which  she, 
as  the  eldest  daughter,  was  presumably  the  mistress, 
and  was  in  any  case  already  well  known  and  dis- 
tinguished, alike  as  woman  and  as  author. 

This,  however,  is  wild  anticipation!  At  the  date 
at  which  we  have  arrived  Maria  Edgeworth  was  still 


1.]  EARLY  LIFE  5 

a  tiny  child,  fresh  from  the  nursery  of  Great  Russell 
Street,  where  her  chief  recreation  seems  to  have  con- 
sisted in  being  taken  for  walks  by  her  great-aunts, 
the  dignified  Miss  Blakes,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  British  Museum  and  similar  resorts.  Shortly 
after  his  new  marriage  Mr.  Edgeworth  took  his  wife 
and  children  to  Edgeworthstown,  to  which  he  had 
succeeded  a  few  years  earlier  upon  the  death  of  his 
father.  This  appears,  however,  to  have  been  a  mere 
family  episode,  and  to  have  made  hardly  any  per- 
manent impression  upon  Maria's  own  mind.  When  in 
later  years  she  endeavoured  to  re-awaken  the  recollec- 
tions which  this  first  visit  to  the  family  home  had  left 
behind,  little  or  nothing  seems  to  have  survived.  Of 
Ireland  itself,  or  what  is  called  "  local  colour,"  there 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  even  a  trace.  Two 
prominent  incidents  indeed  emerged  out  of  the  void. 
She  remembered,  so  her  stepmother  assures  us,  cutting 
out  the  squares  of  a  checked  sofa-cover  with  a  pair  of 
scissors,  which  some  one  had  incautiously  left  within 
reach  of  her  active  little  fingers.  What  occurred  when 
the  owner  of  those  scissors  returned  does  not,  strange 
to  say,  seem  to  have  left  any  particular  impression 
upon  her  mind !  A  more  heroic  piece  of  mischief  con- 
sisted in  trampling  through  a  set  of  newly  glazed 
garden  frames,  which  had  been  laid  out  upon  the  grass ; 
and  it  is  characteristic  that,  even  after  an  interval  of 
more  than  fifty  years,  the  heavenly  crash  and  smashing 
noise  of  that  breaking  glass  was  still,  so  she  told  one 
of  her  relations,  vividly  present  to  her  mind.  Recall- 
ing how  little  girls,  or  for  that  matter  little  girls' 
mothers  and  aunts,  were  shod  in  and  about  the  year 
1774,  the  remarkable  part  of  this  anecdote  seems  to  be 


6  MAEIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

that  no  permanent  injury  was  sustained  by  any  one, 
with  the  exception  of  the  ill-fated  garden  frames. 

Soon  —  a  great  deal  too  soon  for  her  own  future 
interests  as  a  romancer  —  these  scenes  of  youthful  guilt 
were  left  behind.  Unlike  luckier  children,  who  are 
born  to  permanent  Irish  homes,  poor  little  Maria 
Edgeworth's  buccaneering  days  were  very  early  over 
and  done  with.  The  doors  of  the  prison-house  —  in 
other  words,  the  doors  of  Mrs.  Lataffiere's  superior 
seminary  for  young  ladies  at  Derby  —  were  shortly  to 
close  behind  her.  At  eight  years  old  she  left  Edge- 
worthstown,  not  again  to  set  foot  on  Irish  soil  for 
seven  long  years. 

Of  these  seven  years  not  many  details  seem  to  have 
been  preserved.  With  the  easy  optimism  of  the  bio- 
grapher, Mr.  Hare  assures  us  that  from  the  period  of 
their  mother's  death,  Maria  and  her  sisters  enjoyed 
"a  childhood  of  unclouded  happiness."  How  many 
childhoods  of  unclouded  happiness,  outside  the  pages 
of  biographies,  there  have  ever  been,  is  a  question  that 
it  would  take  us  some  time  to  discuss.  In  Maria 
Edgeworth's  case  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  more 
uuflecked  with  clouds  than  other  childhoods.  Indeed, 
bearing  in  mind  the  date  of  it,  and  the  very  active  and 
zealous  part  played  by  rod  and  taws  in  those  days  — 
in  educational  establishments  dedicated  to  little  girls 
hardly  less  than  in  those  dedicated  to  their  brothers  — 
we  may  feel  certain  that  it  was  crossed  by  a  good 
many  discomforts,  which  in  maturer  years  we  should 
be  apt  to  describe  as  tolerably  full-grown  sufferings. 
That  her  spirit  was  effectually  subdued  by  the  disci- 
pline is  at  least  clear.  The  brief  days  of  liberty  and 
of  light-hearted  marauding;  the  days  of  sofa-cover- 


I.]  EARLY  LIFE  7 

cutting  and  of  frame-smashing,  were  gone  for  ever.  If 
we  wish  to  see  how  far  the  pendulum  had  swung  in  the 
opposite  direction,  we  have  only  to  study  the  following 
artless  epistle,  written  to  her  first  stepmother  in  1776, 
when  she  must  have  been  a  little  over  nine  years 
old:  — 

"  Derby,  March  30,  1776. 

"Dear  Mamma,  —  It  is  with  the  greatest  pleasure  I  write 
to  you,  as  I  flatter  myself  it  will  make  you  happy  to  hear 
from  me.  I  hope  you  and  my  dear  papa  are  well.  School 
now  seems  agreeable  to  me.  I  have  begun  French  and  danc- 
ing, and  intend  to  make  "  ["  great  "  was  written  here,  but  on 
second  thoughts  struck  out]  "  improvement  in  everything  I 
learn.  I  know  that  it  will  give  you  great  satisfaction  to 
know  that  I  am  a  good  girl.  My  cousin  Clay  sends  her  love 
to  you ;  mine  to  my  father  and  sisters,  who  I  hope  are  well. 
Pray  give  my  duty  to  papa,  and  accept  the  same  from,  dear 
Mamma,  —  your  dutiful  Daughter." 

The  year  1780  stands  out  as  a  rather  noteworthy  date 
in  Maria  Edgeworth's  youthful  history.  Three  events 
occurred  in  it,  all  three  of  no  small  importance  to  her. 
The  first  of  these  was  the  death  from  consumption  of 
her  first  stepmother ;  the  second  was  the  marriage  of 
her  father  within  a  few  months  to  another  stepmother, 
who  was  the  sister  of  the  preceding  one ;  the  third, 
and  what  perhaps  at  the  time  was  the  most  important 
to  herself  of  these  three  events,  was  her  own  removal 
from  Mrs.  Lataffiere's  school  in  Derby,  to  the  more 
advanced  one  of  Mrs.  Davis  in  Upper  Wimpole  Street, 
London.  At  this  establishment  we  are  assured  that 
''  she  had  excellent  masters,"  but  the  honours  of  her 
education  seem  in  reality  to  have  fallen  rather  to  her 
old  school,  since  the  unpublished  family  memoir  tells 
us  that  she  had  been  so  well  grounded  in  French  and 


8  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

Italian  by  Mr.  Lataffiere,  the  husband  of  her  first 
schoolmistress,  that  when  she  came  to  do  the  exercises 
set  to  her  class  at  Mrs.  Davis's,  she  found  them  so 
easy  that  she  wrote  out  the  whole  quarter's  exercises 
at  once,  "  keeping  them  strung  together  in  her  desk, 
and,  while  the  other  girls  were  labouring  at  their 
tasks,  she  had  all  that  time  for  reading  what  she 
pleased  to  herself,  and,  when  the  French  master  came 
round  for  the  exercises,  had  only  to  unstring  hers,  and 
present  it." 

For  a  young  person  who  was  already  an  omnivorous 
reader,  and  even  in  a  mild  way  a  budding  author, 
this  was  a  propitious  circumstance.  Maria  Edge- 
worth's  long  literary  life  of  nearly  sixty  years  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  officially  a  little  before  this  date, 
upon  the  receipt  of  an  order  from  her  father  to  send 
him  a  tale  —  "  about  the  length  of  a  Spectator,  on  the 
subject  of  Generosity."  It  was  to  be  taken,  so  the 
order  ran,  "from  History  or  Romance,  and  must  be 
sent  the  day  s'ennight  after  you  receive  this,  and  I 
beg  you  will  take  some  pains  about  it."  These  direc- 
tions were  appropriately  issued  from  that  home  of 
the  muses,  Lichfield,  the  same  subject  having  been 
also  given  to  a  "  young  gentleman  from  Oxford," 
who  was,  it  seems,  upon  a  visit  there.  Mr.  Edge- 
worth's  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Sneyd,  was  requested  to 
decide  upon  the  respective  merits  of  the  competitors, 
and  he  unhesitatingly  pronounced  in  favour  of  Maria's 
version.  "An  excellent  story  and  extremely  well 
written,  but  where's  the  Generosity  ?  "  was  the  form 
which  his  verdict  took,  a  saying  which  she  was  fond 
herself  of  using  afterwards  as  a  sort  of  proverb. 

This  early  effort  has  not  apparently  been  preserved. 


I.]  EARLY  LIFE  9 

and  at  school  her  story-telling  instincts  took  what 
was  the  more  immediately  successful  form  of  im- 
provisation. At  Derby,  and  later  at  Wimpole  Street, 
she  appears  to  have  had  the  satisfaction  of  keeping 
awake  all  who  had  the  advantage  of  sharing  a  bedroom 
with  her.  It  was  not  without  considerable  emotion 
that  I  recently  ascertained  that  —  unlike  the  stern 
utilitarianism  of  later  years  —  these  first  products  of 
Miss  Edgeworth's  muse  seem  to  have  dipped  decidedly 
into  those  elements  of  Eomance,  and  even  of  Horror, 
which  she  afterwards  held  it  to  be  one  of  her  main 
duties  to  crush  down  and  reprobate.  So,  at  least,  I  am 
forced  to  conclude,  on  finding —  also  from  unpublished 
sources  —  that  a  character  in  one  of  the  tales  which  was 
specially  applauded  by  her  room-mates,  was  that  of  a 
hero,  or  more  probably  a  villain,  who  had  the  excep- 
tional good  fortune  to  possess  "  a  mask  made  from  the 
dried  skin  taken  from  a  dead  man's  face,  which  he  put 
on  when  he  wished  to  be  disguised,  and  which  he  at 
other  times  kept  buried  at  the  foot  of  a  tree  ! " 

While  still  at  Mrs.  Davis's  school,  and  still  engaged 
in  the  concoction  of  these  thrilling,  if  very  uncharac- 
teristic devices,  Maria  was  overtaken  by  what  seemed 
likely  to  become  a  serious,  not  to  say  a  lifelong  trouble. 
Her  eyes  became  so  painfiilly  inflamed  that  she  was 
unable  to  use  them.  By  her  father's  orders  she  was 
accordingly  taken  to  "one  of  the  first  physicians  of 
the  day  in  London  "  —  oculists  were  apparently  beings 
as  yet  uninvented.  This  gentleman's  methods  seem 
to  have  been  as  considerate  as  his  diagnosis  was 
accurate.  Placing  the  little  girl  between  his  knees,  he 
examined  her  eyes,  and  at  once  loudly  announced  in 
a  tone  of  absolute  certainty,  "  She  will  lose  her  sight." 


10  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

In  spite  of  this  cheerful  and  kindly  verdict,  she 
fortunately  did  nothing  of  the  kind,  although  her  eyes 
continued  for  some  time  to  be  a  trouble  to  her. 

It  was  while  still  suffering  from  this  discomfort  that 
she  was  sent  to  spend  her  holidays  at  Anningsly,  in 
the  house  of  that  formidable  disciplinarian,  Mr. 
Thomas  Day,  the  author  of  /Sandford  and  Merton. 

Mr.  Day  is  one  of  those  incredibly  erratic  mortals, 
dear  to  the  student  of  human  nature,  who,  when  they 
cross  the  path  of  a  biographer,  are  apt  to  turn  him 
aside  for  a  while  from  his  proper  business.  He 
and  Mr.  Edgeworth  had  met  for  the  first  time  at 
a  house  called  Hare  Hatch,  where  their  friendship 
seems  to  have  sprung  into  existence  at  once.  Their 
next  meeting  was  at  Lichfield,  where  they  formed 
part  of  a  very  accomplished  and  erudite  circle.  "  Mr. 
Day's  appearance  was  not,"  his  candid  friend  says, 
"  at  that  time  prepossessing.  He  seldom  combed 
his  raven  locks,  though  he  was  remarkably  fond  of 
washing  in  the  stream."  This  visit  to  Lichfield  may 
have  been  one  of  the  rarer  occasions  upon  which  his 
hair  was  combed,  for  he  had  just  made  up  his  mind, 
after  some  hesitation,  to  pay  his  addresses  to  no  less  a 
person  than  the  beautiful  Honora  Sneyd,  mentioned 
a  page  back  as  having  at  a  later  date  become  the 
second  wife  of  Mr.  Edgeworth  himself.  That  deter- 
mination Mr.  Day  confided  to  his  friend,  who,  being 
still  safely  married  to  his  first  wife,  was  felt  to  be  an 
appropriate  confidant.  He  further  confided  to  him 
a  declaratory  letter,  to  be  delivered  to  ]\Iiss  Sneyd,  in 
which  he  explained  the  terms  upon  which  alone  he 
could  be  induced  to  offer  his  hand  and  heart  to  any 
woman.     Seeing  that  these  terms  included,  amongst 


I.]  EAELY  LIFE  11 

other  details,  an  absolute  submission  to  the  marital 
rule,  especially  in  the  matter  of  feminine  dress,  as  well 
as  an  abstention  from  all  the  ordinary  amenities  of  life, 
including  such  trifles  as  music,  poetry,  light  litera- 
ture, and  epistolary  correspondence,  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  letter  did  not  come  short  in  the  matter  of 
frankness.  Whether  in  consequence  of  this  engaging 
programme,  or  because  her  attention  was  distracted 
by  the  too  great  agreeableness  of  the  messenger.  Miss 
Sneyd  declined  the  proposals,  although  Mr.  Edge- 
worth  assures  us  that  she  did  so  "  in  terms  of  the  most 
studied  propriety."  "  She  would  not  "  —  this  is  from 
his  own  published  account  of  the  incident  —  "admit 
the  unqualified  control  of  a  husband  over  all  her 
actions.  She  did  not  feel  that  exclusion  from  society 
was  indispensably  necessary  to  preserve  female  virtue, 
or  to  secure  domestic  happiness."  Furthermore,  "  since 
Mr.  Day  had  decidedly  declared  his  determination  to 
live  in  perfect  seclusion  from  what  is  usually  called 
the  world,  it  was  fit  she  should  decidedly  declare, 
that  she  would  not  change  her  present  mode  of  life, 
with  which  she  had  no  reason  to  be  dissatisfied,  for 
any  dark  and  untried  system  that  could  be  proposed 
to  her."  Poor  Mr.  Day  was  not  only  greatly  surprised, 
but  extremely  mortified  by  this  rejection,  no  matter 
how  beautifully  it  may  have  been  worded.  So  great 
was  the  effect  which  it  had  upon  his  mind  that  — 
having  discreetly  left  him  to  peruse  the  letter  by 
himself  —  "  when  I  returned,"  says  Mr.  Edgeworth, 
"  I  found  him  actually  in  a  fever  !  "  So  serious  was 
this  fever,  that  it  was  found  necessary  to  summon  the 
great  Doctor  Darwin,  author  of  The  Botanic  Garden, 
and  grandfather  of   Charles  Darwin,  who  was  then 


12  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

living  at  Lichfield ;  nor  was  tlie  patient  able  to  be 
aronsed  from  his  dejection  until  the  fortunate  arrival 
at  Lichfield  of  another  Miss  Sneyd,  Elizabeth  by  name, 
who  appeared  there  in  company  with  her  father,  and 
no  less  than  three  more  of  her  sisters. 

This  second  Miss  Sneyd  is  described  by  Mr.  Edge- 
worth  —  who  ought  to  have  known  about  both  sisters 
if  any  one  did  —  as  having  "more  wit,  more  vivacity, 
and  certainly  more  humour  than  her  sister.  She  had, 
however,  less  personal  grace;  she  walked  heavily, 
danced  indifferently,  and  had  much  less  energy  of 
manner  and  of  character."  In  spite  of  a  painful  sus- 
picion of  fashion  which  hung  about  her,  and  to  which 
he  naturally  objected,  Mr.  Day  was  seen  to  observe  this 
young  lady  "  with  complacent  attention."  Her  indif- 
ferent dancing  was  a  source  of  particular  gratification 
to  him,  dancing  being  one  of  those  "  female  accomplish- 
ments "  to  which  he  had  a  rooted  objection.  Her  con- 
versation, moreover,  satisfied  his  taste,  apparently 
because,  having  no  strong  views  of  her  own,  "Mr. 
Day  had  liberty  and  room  enough  "  —  this  again  is  his 
candid  friend's  view  of  the  matter  —  "to  descant  at 
large  and  at  length  upon  whatever  became  the  sub- 
ject of  conversation."  Here  seemed  to  be  the  wife 
selected  for  him  by  destiny !  In  spite,  however,  of 
these  promising  auguries,  the  affair  again  miscarried. 
At  first  the  young  lady  showed  herself  more  com- 
placent than  her  sister,  only  stipulating  that  if  she,  to 
oblige  him,  abstained  from  all  the  pleasures  and 
lighter  accomplishments  of  life,  Mr.  Day  should  on 
his  side  endeavour  to  acquire  some  of  those  graces  of 
personal  deportment  of  which  he  stood  so  manifestly 
in  need.     With  a  lack  of  consistency  hardly  to  be 


I.]  EARLY   LIFE  13 

exjDected  of  so  rigid  a  moralist,  he  consented  to  this 
bargain,  and  accompanied  his  friend  Mr.  Edgeworth, 
who,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  as  will  presently  be  seen, 
was  just  then  leaving  Lichfield  for  France.  Here, 
under  the  charge  of  a  French  dancing-master,  Mr. 
Day  heroically  put  himself  through  a  succession  of 
severe  tortures,  in  the  hopes  of  persuading  his  limbs 
to  become  more  pliable,  and  thereby  to  acquire  those 
graces  which  nature  had  in  his  case  so  inconsiderately 
withheld.  Unfortunately  his  efforts  proved  to  be  of 
no  avail.  Either  nature  was  herself  too  stubborn,  or 
some  other  hindrance  intervened.  When,  upon  his 
return  to  Lichfield,  he  hastened  to  claim  the  reward 
of  his  labours,  not  only  did  Miss  Elizabeth  Sneyd 
refuse  to  accede  to  his  wishes,  but  she  was  actually 
cruel  enough  to  declare  that  she  ''liked  him  better 
as  he  was  before."  When  we  realise  that  both  these 
Miss  Sneyds  —  not  only  Honora,  but  also,  in  her  turn, 
Elizabeth  — became  the  wife  of  his  brilliant  friend  and 
confidant  Mr.  Edgeworth,  we  cannot  avoid  a  tribute 
of  admiration  to  a  friendship  which  proved  to  be  of  a 
texture  tough  enough  to  withstand  two  such  very 
trying  ordeals  ! 

At  the  date  in  which  the  small  Maria  arrived  to  pay 
a  visit  under  his  roof,  these  earlier  vicissitudes  in 
Mr.  Day's  matrimonial  career  were  long  over.  So  also 
were  another  and  an  even  more  remarkable  series, 
which  it  would  take  too  long  to  enter  upon  at  present. 
By  one  of  those  extraordinary  coincidences  which, 
when  they  occur  in  real  life,  can — fortunately  for  the 
characters  of  biographers  —  generally  be  substantiated, 
Mr.  Day  had  found,  or  there  had  been  found  for  him, 
the  precise  wife  for  which  his  requiring  soul  had  so  long 


14  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

vainly  panted.  She  was  amiable ;  youthful ;  she  was 
pleasing  to  look  at,  if  not  particularly  handsome ;  she 
was  ready  to  adore  him ;  she  was  wealthy ;  above  all 
she  was  submissive  to  any  and  every  vagary  which 
might  chance  to  cross  the  fevered  brain  of  her  lord.  In 
short,  she  seems  to  have  been  precisely  the  wife  that 
might  be  expected  to  be  provided  for  a  disciplinarian 
from  on  high !  Thus  provided,  and  naturally  calmed 
by  a  submission  so  absolute,  Mr.  Day's  first  educational 
austerities  had  by  this  time  softened.  Enough  still 
remained  to  cause  him,  one  feels,  to  have  been  quite  a 
sufficiently  formidable  host  to  a  shy  and  rather  delicate 
youthful  guest.  In  the  memoir  of  her  stepdaughter, 
Mrs.  Edgeworth  assures  us  that  'Hhe  icy  strength  of 
his"  (Mr.  Day's)  "system  came  at  the  right  moment 
for  annealing  her"  (Maria's)  "principles,"  whatever 
precisely  may  be  meant  by  that.  Of  this  "  icy  strength," 
as  applied  to  other  people,  we  do  indeed  hear  one  in- 
stance. That  detestable  legacy  of  an  illustrious  prelate 
—  "  Bishop  Berkeley's  tar- water  "  —  was  still  at  that  date 
pursuing  its  dreadful  career,  and  carrying  tears  and 
misery  into  innumerable  families.  Here  was  a  chance 
for  a  disciplinarian  !  "  Mr.  Day  thought  that  the  tar- 
water  would  be  of  use  to  Maria's  inflamed  eyes,"  the 
polite  Mrs.  Edgeworth  relates,  and  accordingly  "he 
used  to  bring  a  large  tumbler  full  of  it  to  her  every 
morning."  Evidently  the  specific  was  not  intended 
to  be  applied  to  her  eyes,  but  quite  otherwise,  for  we 
are  expressly  told  that  she  dreaded  to  hear  his  "  Now, 
Miss  Maria,  drink  this !  "  —  although  her  stepmother 
is  again  good  enough  to  remark,  that  "  in  spite  of  his 
stern  voice,  there  was  something  of  pity  in  his  coun- 
tenance which  always  induced  her  to  swallow  it." 


I.]  EAKLY  LIFE  15 

Any  reader  of  these  lines  who  is  old  enough  to 
remember  the  days  of  unmitigated  dosing  —  those  days 
when,  as  the  author  of  The  Water  Babies  truly  says,  an 
infant's  inside  was  regarded  as  much  the  same  thing 
as  that  of  a  Scotch  grenadier  —  will  perhaps  kindly 
pause  for  a  moment,  and  meditate  sympathetically 
upon  this  picture.  Instinctively  there  rises  before 
the  mind's  eye  the  vision  of  some  cold  winter's  morn- 
ing, and  of  a  shivering  small  person  waking  up  in  the 
rawness  of  an  as  yet  unwarmed  nursery,  or  similar 
dormitory.  Before  the  eyes  of  that  small  person 
there  presently  enters  an  executioner  in  deshabille, 
carrying  a  cup,  which  cup  is  —  abhorrent  vision!  — be- 
ing slowly  stirred  by  a  spoon,  to  which  loathly  red  or 
black  particles  adhere !  If  to  this  once  too  familiar 
picture  the  reader  will  kindly  add  one  crowning 
terror  more,  that  of  the  author  of  Sandford  and 
Merton,  with  his  oft-described  long  black  locks  float- 
ing behind  him,  the  detestable  cup  in  his  hands,  and 
clad  presumably  in  a  quite  ungarnished  dressing- 
gown  ;  such  a  reader  will,  I  think,  agree  with  me  that 
the  cup  —  too  literally  cup  —  of  Maria  Edgeworth's 
youthful  troubles  must  now  and  then  have  been  felt 
to  fairly  brim  over  ! 

While  upon  the  subject  of  such  early  tribulations, 
there  is  yet  another  which  ought  to  be  described  here, 
although  in  this  case  the  petty  martyrdom  had  to  be 
endured — not  while  enjoying  the  pleasures  of  a  friendly 
visit  —  but,  more  appropriately,  as  forming  part  of  the 
arcana  of  her  school  life.  Naturally  in  so  superior  an 
establishment  as  that  of  Mrs.  Davis  in  Upper  Wimpole 
Street,  all  the  ordinary  calisthenic  appurtenances,  in  the 
form  of  backboards,  iron  collars,  and  dumb-bells,  were 


16  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

provided.  These,  it  seems,  were  not  considered  to  be 
sufficient  in  Maria's  case.  For  her  special  benefit  one 
more  had  to  be  added,  one  which  even  the  judicious 
family  biographer  seems  to  have  regarded  as  rather 
severe.  She  was  now  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  her 
shortness  was  observed  with  no  little  disapproval  by 
her  own  family  circle.  The  Edgeworths  had  always 
been  a  well-grown  race,  and  so  pronounced  a  lack,  at 
once  of  height  and  of  good  looks,  seemed  like  a  decided 
slight  to  the  family  standard.  To  obviate  this  short- 
ness, not  only  therefore  were  all  the  above-named 
"  usual "  exercises  resorted  to,  but  also  one  which 
Mrs.  Edgeworth  herself  characterises  as  "  unusual," 
that,  namely,  of  "being  swung  by  the  neck  to  draw 
out  the  muscles,  and  so  increase  the  growth." 

Unfortunately  all  this  well-meant,  if  surely  rather 
too  agonising,  discipline  proved  to  be  of  absolutely 
no  avail.  Short  she  was,  and  short  she  was  destined 
to  remain.  One  of  the  very  few  persons  whom  it 
has  been  my  own  good  fortune  to  meet  with  who  was 
actually  acquainted  with  Miss  Edgeworth,  has  de- 
scribed to  me  the  excitement  created  by  her  arrival 
at  a  house  in  which  my  informant  —  then  a  child  of 
six  —  was  herself  staying,  and  amongst  the  few  salient 
points  which  were  recalled,  the  excessive  shortness  of 
the  visitor  was  perhaps  the  most  salient.  "Small?  Yes; 
she  was  exceedingly  small,  except  for  her  nose,  which,  I 
remember,  seemed  to  me  to  be  very  big  !  "  Evidently 
the  discrepancy  between  the  height,  the  nose,  and  the 
enormous  reputation  of  the  guest  was  the  point  which 
left  the  most  vivid  impression  on  the  mind  of  her 
youthful  acquaintance.  And  this  brings  me  back  to 
the  year   1782,  in   which  year   it  was  that  at  last, 


i]  EARLY  LIFE  17 

and  as  it  happily  proved  permanently,  Ireland  began 
to  loom  large  upon  Maria  Edgeworth's  horizon.  Before 
following  her  thither  it  will  be  necessary  for  us  to 
retrace  our  steps  a  little,  in  order  to  pick  up  some  of 
the  other  scattered  threads  of  the  family  history. 

Note.  —  Only  one  authentic  portrait  of  Miss  Edgeworth 
seems  to  be  extant,  namely  a  drawing  done  in  1785  by  Adam 
Buck,  in  which  she  forms  part  of  a  large  family  group  ;  it 
will  be  fouud  fully  described  by  Mrs.  Richmond  Ritchie,  in 
the  Introduction  to  Messrs.  Macmillan's  collected  edition, 
vol.  i.  page  xviii.  In  connection  with  this  point,  it  is  rather 
amusing  to  realise  that  the  portrait  which  serves  as  the  frontis- 
piece to  the  Life  and  Letters  by  Mr.  Hare  is  not  a  likeness 
of  Miss  Edgeworth  at  all.  It  was  a  purely  "fancy  piece," 
executed  for  some  American  magazine,  and  embodied  appar- 
ently the  artist's  idea  of  how  an  authoress  oright  to  be  shown  — 
seated,  namely,  with  one  elbow  upon  a  pile  of  her  own  books, 
and  a  finger  pointed  significantly  towards  her  brow.  It  has 
been  identified  as  being  the  very  "portrait"  sent  by  herself 
as  a  joke  to  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Ruxton,  with  the  inscription  — 
"  0,  said  the  little  woman,  this  is  none  of  I ! " 


CHAPTER  TI 

KICHAKD   LOVELL   EDGEWORTH 

No  study  of  Maria  Edgeworth,  however  slight,  could 
possibly  pretend  to  completeness  without  a  some- 
what careful  survey  of  her  father.  The  admirers  of 
her  admirable  gifts  are  apt,  with  hardly  an  exception, 
to  bear  a  somewhat  heated  grudge  against  the  memory 
of  this  too  consciously  edifying  Richard  Lovell  Edge- 
worth.  They  are  wont  to  consider  that  the  author 
of  Miss  Edgeworth's  being  was  also  too  frequently 
the  author  of  the  least  satisfactory  portions  of  her 
books.  Even  when  not  actuall}^  guiding  her  pen  —  a 
piece  of  parental  presumption  of  which  he  was  perfectly 
capable — in  spirit  he  hovered  over  it,  and  that  a 
desire  for  the  paternal  approbation  was  with  her  the 
first  and  strongest  of  all  incentives  there  can  be  no 
question.  "Wherever,  in  her  case,  the  didactic  impulse 
is  seen  to  distinctly  overpower  the  creative  one;  wher- 
ever we  find  Utility  lauded  to  the  skies  as  the  only 
guide  of  an  otherwise  foundering  humanity  ;  above  all, 
wherever  we  find  an  enormous  emphasis  laid  upon  the 
necessity  at  all  times  and  places  of  a  due  subordination 
of  the  feminine  to  the  masculine  judgment,  —  there 
we  may  feel  sure  that  we  are  upon  his  track,  and  that 
such  sentiments  were  uttered  primarily  with  a  view 
to  the  approbation  of  the  domestic  critic. 

18 


CHAP.  II.]     RICHARD  LOVELL  EDGEWORTH  19 

Like  tlie  rest  of  our  race  —  wise,  witty,  or  the  reverse 
—  Richard  Lovell  Edgeworth  was  emphatically  the 
child  of  his  forebears;  indeed  he  seems  in  certain 
respects  to  have  been  even  more  directly  traceable  to 
them  than  is  usually  the  case.  "With  regard  to  the 
causes  which  induced  the  Edgeworth  family  to  settle 
originally  in  Ireland,  little  appears  to  be  accurately 
known.  There  is  a  vague  report  of  a  monk  —  one 
Roger  Edgeworth  —  who  is  asserted  to  have  broken  his 
vows  and  married  for  love,  but  we  find  no  mention  of 
him  in  Mr.  Edgeworth's  own  memoir,  which  is  our 
principal  source  of  information  with  regard  to  the 
family.  The  year  1583  is  the  date  fixed  upon  for 
their  arrival  in  Ireland,  before  which  time  they  are 
said  to  have  been  settled  at  Edgeware,  in  Middlesex, 
which  is  even  declared  to  have  been  once  called  Edge- 
worth,  though  the  data  for  any  such  connection  appear 
to  be  entirely  apocryphal.  The  first  Irish  Edgeworth 
who  emerges  clearly  into  sight  is  Edward  Edgeworth, 
Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  who,  dying  without 
children  in  the  year  lo93,  left  his  fortune  to  his  brother 
Francis,  at  one  time  a  clerk  of  the  Hanaper,  and  the 
direct  ancestor  of  Eichard  Lovell  Edgeworth,  conse- 
quently of  his  daughter  ]\raria.  This  Erancis  Edgeworth 
married  the  daughter  of  a  Sir  Edmond  Tuite,  owner 
of  a  place  called  Sonna,  in  the  county  of  Westmeath. 
She  is  described  by  her  descendant  as  "  beautiful,  and 
of  an  ancient  family,"  and  he  further  relates  that  having 
been  obliged  on  some  occasion  to  give  place  at  church 
to  a  neighbour,  upon  her  return  home  she  indignantly 
pressed  her  husband  to  take  out  a  baronet's  patent, 
thereby  insuring  against  such  ignominies  in  the  future. 
This  he  declined  to  do,  declaring,  with  commendable 


20  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

prudence,  such  patents  to  be  "  more  onerous  than 
honourable,"  She  thereupon  announced  her  intention 
of  going  no  more  to  church,  and  he,  in  a  tone  which 
brings  the  connubial  conversations  of  Castle  Rackrent 
strongly  before  our  mind,  retorted  that  "she  might 
stay,  or  go  wherever  she  pleased."  The  permission 
so  given  she  accepted,  more  literally  apparently  than 
it  was  meant,  and  quitting,  not  alone  her  husband, 
but  Ireland,  she  betook  herself  to  the  English  court, 
where  she  became  attached  in  some  capacity  to  the 
Queen,  Henrietta  Maria,  whom  she  afterwards  accom- 
panied to  France.  After  the  queen's  death,  she  re- 
turned, ^we  are  informed,  to  Ireland,  having  in  the 
meantime  become  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  disregarding 
the  claims  of  her  family,  she  there  "  laid  out  a  very 
large  fortune  in  founding  a  religious  house  in  Dublin." 
So  runs  the  account  in  Mr.  Edgeworth's  own  auto- 
biography, which  occupies  the  first  volume  of  his 
daughter's  memoir  of  him.  It  is  clear,  however,  that 
this  part  of  the  family  history  must  be  taken  with  a 
considerable  amount  of  reserve,  since  in  the  very  next 
paragraph  the  writer  of  it  assures  us  that  the  son  of 
this  lady.  Captain  John  Edgeworth,  was  with  his  wife 
and  infant  heir  settled  in  the  Castle  of  Cranallagh,  in 
county  Longford,  in  the  year  1G41.  That  in  the  same 
year,  he  being  at  a  distance  upon  military  duty,  the 
rebels  rose,  attacked  the  castle,  set  fire  to  it  at  night, 
dragged  the  unfortunate  lady  out,  "literally  naked"; 
that  the  castle  was  plundered,  and  would  have  been 
entirely  destroyed  but  that  —  here  the  mystery  comes 
in — the  rebels  were  persuaded  to  extinguish  the  fire 
from  "reverence  for  the  picture  of  Jane  Edgeworth, 
which  was  painted  upon  the  wainscot,  with  a  cross 


II.]  KICHARD   LOVELL   EDGEWORTH  21 

hanging  from  her  neck,  and  a  rosary  in  her  hands. 
Being  a  Catholic,  and  having  founded  a  religious  house, 
she  was  considered  a  saint." 

A  more  confusing  piece  of  family  history  surely  never 
was  printed.  How  Mrs.  Jane  Edgeworth  could  pos- 
sibly have  been  regarded  as  a  saint  in  Ireland,  in  the 
year  1641,  on  account  of  having  established  a  religious 
house  in  Dublin,  which  we  are  expressly  told  was  not 
founded  till  after  Queen  Henrietta's  death,  an  event 
that  occurred  twenty-eight  years  later,  is  an  un- 
fathomable mystery.  The  only  way  of  explaining 
that  mystery  seems  to  be  to  suppose  that  the  family 
records  had  got  hopelessly  mixed,  and  that,  when  he 
came  to  write  his  own  memoirs,  Mr.  Edgeworth  trusted 
—  as  he  well  might  —  to  that  Cimmerian  darkness  as 
regards  Ireland  and  Irish  history,  which  probably 
prevailed  all  but  universally  in  his  day,  and  has  only 
been  very  partially  dissipated  in  ours. 

Leaving  this  portion  of  his  record  as  too  hopelessly 
tangled  to  unravel,  we  pass  on  to  the  study  of  his  own 
and  his  family's  later  history. 

AVith  regard  to  the  unfortunate  infant  heir  of  the 
castle,  a  series  of  terrific  adventures  is  recorded  upon 
that  same  fateful  night.  Indeed  if  the  Edgeworth 
family  annals  come  now  and  then  a  little  short  in  the 
matter  of  mere  bald  accuracy,  they  more  than  make  up 
for  that  defect  by  their  supply  of  graphic  and  alluring 
detail.     Take  the  following  instance  as  a  sample :  — 

"  One  of  the  rebels  seized  the  child  by  the  leg,  and  was  in 
the  act  of  swinging  him  round  to  dash  his  brains  out  against 
the  corner  of  the  castle  wall,  when  an  Irish  servant,  of  the 
lowest  order,  stopped  his  hand,  claiming  the  right  of  killing 
the  little  heretic  himself,  and  swearing  that  a  sudden  death 


22  MARIA  EDGE  WORTH  [chap. 

would  be  too  good  for  him  ;  that  he  would  plunge  him  up  to 
the  throat  iu  a  boghole,  aud  leave  him  for  the  crows  to  pick 
his  eyes  out.  Snatching  the  child  from  his  comrade,  he  ran 
off  with  it  to  a  neighbouring  bog,  and  thrust  it  into  the  mud  ; 
but,  when  the  rebels  had  retired,  this  man,  who  had  only 
pretended  to  join  them,  went  back  to  the  bog  for  the  boy, 
preserved  his  life,  and,  contriving  to  bide  him  in  a  pannier 
under  eggs  and  chickens,  carried  him  actually  through  the 
midst  of  the  rebel  camp  safely  back  to  Dublin  !  " 

The  expedient  of  hiding  a  child  in  a  pannier,  which 
is  afterwards  filled  up  with  eggs  and  chickens,  and 
carried  through  a  camp  of  hungry  rebels,  does  not 
somehow  appeal  to  the  mind  as  quite  the  safest  that 
could  have  been  devised.  However,  the  child  escaped, 
which  is  the  main  point  of  the  story,  and  in  due  course 
came  to  have  other,  if  hardly  equally  perilous,  adven- 
tures. Not  so  his  mother.  Whether  from  the  shock, 
or  from  some  other  cause,  the  poor  lady  did  not  long 
survive  that  disastrous  night.  She  died  shortly  after- 
wards in  England,  where  she  and  her  husband,  Captain 
Edgeworth,  were  then  living,  and  upon  her  death  he 
determined  to  return  to  Ireland.  "What  happened  to 
him  on  his  homeward  journey  must  again  be  told  in 
his  descendant's  words :  — 

"  On  his  way  thither,  he  stopped  a  day  at  Chester,  it  being 
Christmas  Day.  He  went  to  the  Cathedral,  and  there  he  was 
struck  with  the  sight  of  a  lady,  who  had  a  full-blown  rose  in 
her  bosom.  This  lady  was  Mrs.  Bridgman,  widow  cf  Sir 
Edward  Bridgman,  brother  to  Sir  Orlando  Bridgman,  the 
Lord  Keeper.  As  she  was  coming  out  of  church,  the  rose 
fell  at  Captain  Edgeworth's  feet.  The  lady  was  liandsome  — 
so  was  the  captain.  He  took  up  the  rose,  and  presented  it 
with  so  much  grace  to  Mrs.  Bridgman,  that  in  consequence 
they  became  acquainted,  and  were  soon  after  married.  They 
came  over  to  Ireland." 


i 


II.]  RICHARD  LOVELL  EDGEWORTH  23 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  gratification  which  Mr. 
Edgeworth  must  have  felt  in  having  possessed  at  least 
one  ancestor  so  entirely  worthy  of  himself.  The  whole 
scene  —  the  newly  made  widower,  the  lady,  the  gallant 
captain,  the  full-blown  rose,  the  grace  of  the  action ; 
finally  —  marriage,  and  a  journey  to  Ireland.  There 
is  something  about  it  positively  prophetic!  By  her 
previous  marriage  this  lady  had  an  only  daughter,  an 
heiress,  whereas  Captain  Edgeworth  had,  as  has  been 
said,  one  son.  Though  brought  up  in  the  closest  con- 
nection, the  young  people  were  of  course  no  relation 
to  one  another.  They  fell  in  love,  but  the  young 
lady's  mother  being  averse  to  the  marriage,  and  the 
laws  against  running  away  with  heiresses  serious,  the 
matter  had  to  be  arranged  by  the  bride  taking  her 
bridegroom  to  church  mounted  behind,  instead  of 
before,  her  on  the  horse ;  —  an  anecdote  with  regard 
to  which  we  can  only  say,  that  a  law  that  could  be 
evaded  by  so  infantile  an  expedient  was  a  law  which 
thoroughly  deserved  to  be  evaded. 

And  here  we  are  confronted  by  yet  another  rather 
surprising  little  fragment  of  family  history.  The  son 
of  this  couple  was  Mr.  Edgeworth's  own  grandfather, 
consequently  he  might  be  expected  to  know  something 
definite  about  him.  In  his  memoir,  however,  he 
assures  us  that  the  child  was  born  "before  the  joint 
ages  of  his  father  and  mother  amounted  to  thirty-one 
years,"  an  assertion  which  is  enough  to  take  a  harm- 
less biographer's  breath  away !  Assuming,  as  one 
naturally  would  do,  that  the  age  of  the  youthful  father 
could  hardly  have  been  less  than  seventeen  or  eighteen 
years,  that  of  the  mother  sinks  to  a  figure  that  is 
positively  portentous  !      Upon  referring   the   matter, 


24  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

however,  to  an  authority  outside  that  of  the  memoir, 
it  has  been  recently  ascertained,  not  without  relief, 
that  by  an  unwritten  family  tradition  the  ages  of  both 
parents  have  been  fixed  at  fifteen  years  and  six  months. 
Even  so,  the  incident  is  unusual. 

The  marriage,  thus  merrily  begun,  seems  to  have 
gone  on  pretty  much  as  might  have  been  expected 
from  its  start.  The  extravagance  of  the  young  couple 
was  phenomenal,  even  for  a  not  very  economical  age  — 
that  of  Charles  the  Second.  As  an  instance  of  it,  the 
gentleman  on  one  occasion  parted  with  "  the  ground- 
plot  of  a  house  in  Dublin  to  buy  a  crowned  hat  with 
feathers,  which  was  then  the  mode."  The  lady,  in 
addition  to  her  extravagance,  had  a  lively  temper,  and 
was  in  the  habit  of  twittingher  husband  with  the  fortune 
which  she  had  brought  him.  Although  a  believer  in 
ghosts  and  goblins,  she  on  one  occasion  exhibited 
remarkable  courage,  if  the  account  given  of  the  affair 
is  accurate.     Here  it  is  in  her  descendant's  words :  — 

"  While  she  was  living  at  Lissard,  she  was,  on  some  sudden 
alarm,  obliged  to  go  at  night  to  a  garret  at  the  top  of  the 
house  for  some  gunpowder,  which  was  kept  there  in  a  barrel. 
She  was  followed  upstairs  by  an  ignorant  servant  girl,  who 
carried  a  bit  of  candle  without  a  candlestick  between  her 
fingers.  When  Lady  Edgeworth  had  taken  what  gunpowder 
she  wanted,  had  locked  the  door,  and  was  halfway  down- 
stairs again,  she  observed  that  the  girl  had  not  her  candle, 
and  asked  what  she  had  done  with  it ;  the  girl  recollected  and 
answered  that  she  had  left  it  '  stuck  in  the  barrel  of  black 
salt.'  Lady  Edgeworth  bid  her  stand  still,  and  instantly 
returned  by  herself  to  the  room  where  the  gunpowder  was  ; 
found  the  candle  as  the  girl  had  described ;  put  her  hand 
carefully  underneath  it,  carried  it  safely  out ;  and  when  she 
got  to  the  bottom  of  the  stairs,  dropped  on  her  knees,  and 
thanked  God  for  their  deliverance." 


11.]  RICHARD  LOVELL  EDGE  WORTH  25 

The  last  sentence  has  a  familiar  ring,  but  the  anec- 
dote is  fresh  and  exciting  enough.  Whether  open 
barrels  of  gunpowder,  ready  for  any  one  who  liked  to 
dip  into,  were  common  objects  in  the  attics  of  even 
Irish  country  houses  a  couple  of  centuries  ago,  may 
be  questioned.  How  the  lady  and  her  maid  got  down- 
stairs in  the  dark,  without  remembering  they  had  left 
the  candle  behind  them,  is  another  note  of  interroga- 
tion—  but  this  is  mere  belated  captiousness !  The 
eldest  son  of  this  heroine,  Francis  Edgeworth,  was 
known,  we  learn,  as  "  Protestant  Frank,"  and  raised 
a  regiment  in  his  youth  for  King  William,  a  service 
for  which  the  family  were  never  paid.  He  also 
married  a  succession  of  wives,  which  seems  to  have 
been  by  this  time  quite  an  established  family  habit ; 
and  was  rather  noted  as  a  gambler,  on  one  occasion 
going  so  far  as  to  stake  the  diamond  earrings  which 
his  wife  —  one,  that  is  to  say,  of  his  wives  —  was  at  the 
moment  wearing,  and  which  she  had  to  take  out  of 
her  ears  for  the  purpose. 

Coming  down  to  the  period  of  Mr.  Edgeworth  him- 
self and  of  his  father,  we  find  ourselves  in  much  tamer 
days.  Of  the  latter,  not  so  much  as  a  single  anecdote 
is  recorded ;  while  of  the  former,  though  of  course  the 
hero  of  the  record,  the  most  salient  early  event  we 
hear  of  him  is  that  in  a  fit  of  infantine  rage  he  one 
day  flung  a  red-hot  smoothing-iron  across  the  nursery 
table  at  his  elder  brother,  an  incident  chiefly  important 
from  the  fact  that  it  served  as  the  text  of  an  excellent 
sermon  preached  to  him  by  his  mother  upon  the 
dangers  of  impetuosity.  Owing  to  his  brother's  early 
death  —  an  event  quite  disconnected,  let  me  hasten  to 
say,  from   the  red-hot  smoothing-iron  —  she  showed 


26  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

unnecessary  anxiety,  lie  tells  us,  about  his  own  health, 
which  was  perfectly  good,  and  it  was  only  with  infinite 
precautions  that  he  was  even  allowed  to  take  his  ac- 
customed morning  airing,  mounted  on  horseback  behind 
the  family  coachman.  On  the  other  hand,  she  displayed 
great  discrimination,  in  his  opinion,  with  regard  to  the 
disciplining  of  his  mind,  early  implanting  in  it  those 
lessons  of  utilitarianism  which  it  was  his  pride  and 
satisfaction  to  pass  on  afterwards  to  his  own  daughter, 
and  through  her  to  whole  generations  of  Harrys  and 
Lucys,  Kichards  and  Marias,  as  yet  unborn. 

He  was  first  sent  to  a  school  at  Warwick,  from 
which  he  was  transferred  to  one  at  Drogheda,  where 
he  was  as  much  mocked  at,  he  tells  us,  for  his  English 
accent  as  he  had  previously  been  at  Warwick  for  his 
Irish  brogue ;  from  which  school,  upon  attaining  the 
age  of  seventeen,  he  was  despatched  to  Trinity  College, 
Dublin.  Here  it  is  evident  that  his  health  was  under 
no  peril  from  too  severe  a  course  of  study,  since  he 
expressly  informs  us  that  "  it  was  not  the  fashion  in 
those  days  to  plague  fellow-commoners  with  lectures." 
Possibly  it  may  have  been  on  account  of  this  con- 
siderate custom  that  his  father  presently  transferred 
him  to  Corpus  Christi,  Oxford,  placing  him  under 
some  sort  of  tutelage  with  an  old  friend  of  his  own, 
Mr.  Elers,  then  living  at  Black  Bourton,  a  gentleman 
who  —  a  very  important  point  —  was  the  father  of 
several  daughters ! 

It  was  due  to  this  arrangement  that  the  first,  and 
ranch  the  least  successful,  of  Mr.  Edgeworth's  many 
marriages  came  to  pass.  What  the  rights  and  wrongs 
of  that  story  were  it  is,  as  I  have  already  said,  im- 
possible at  this  date  to  ascertain,  and,  since  we  are 


11.]  EICHARD  LOVELL  EDGEWORTH  27 

unable  to  hear  both  sides,  we  must  be  content  to 
accept  the  only  articulate  one.  That,  like  many 
another  man  before  and  since,  young  Mr.  Edgeworth 
went  further  than  he  had  intended  is  plain,  and  we 
must  at  least  give  him  credit  for  having  carried  the 
affair  to  its  legitimate  conclusion.  The  young  people 
eloped  in  correct  romantic  fashion,  in  a  post  chaise, 
and  were  married  at  Gretna  Green.  This  is  his  own 
account  of  the  matter  —  an  eminently  characteristic 
one:  — 

"  Before  I  went  to  Bath,  one  of  the  young  ladies  at  Black 
Bourton  had  attracted  my  attention  ;  I  had  paid  my  court  to 
her,  and  I  felt  myself  entangled  so  completely,  that  I  could 
not  find  any  honourable  means  of  extrication.  I  have  not  to 
reproach  myself  with  any  deceit,  or  suppression  of  the  truth. 
On  my  return  to  Black  Bourton,  I  did  not  conceal  the  altered 
state  of  my  mind,  but  having  engaged  the  affections  of  the 
young  lady,  I  married  while  I  was  still  a  youth  at  college.  I 
resolved  to  meet  the  disagreeable  consequences  of  such  a  step 
with  fortitude,  and  without  being  dispirited  by  the  loss  of 
the  society  to  which  I  had  been  accustomed." 

It  is  a  relief  to  the  sympathetic  reader  to  find  that 
the  deprivation,  confronted  with  so  heroic  a  fortitude, 
was  anything  but  an  eternal  one  !  Not  long  after  his 
marriage,  Mr.  Edgeworth  made  his  appearance  at 
Lichfield  without  his  wife,  and  there  took  his  place 
amid  a  circle  of  distinguished  and  erudite  persons, 
whose  sayings  and  doings  have  been  considerably 
reported.  The  two  chief  stars  just  then  in  that  social 
firmament  formed  a  marked  and  an  agreeable  contrast 
to  one  another.  One  of  them  was  Doctor  Darwin, 
already  alluded  to  in  the  last  chapter,  a  savant  who 
contrived  to  impart  science  through  the  medium  of 


98  MARIA  EDQEWORTH  [chap. 

poetry,  but  whose  botany  and  zoology  were  apt  to  be 
a  trifle  warped  by  his  favourite  theories.  The  other 
was  Miss  Anna  Seward,  known  locally  as  *'  The  Swan 
of  Lichfield,"  the  authoress  of  several  volumes  of 
"  elegant "  verse,  who,  with  her  father,  a  canon  of 
Lichfield,  and  her  cousin.  Miss  Honora  Sneyd,  was  at 
that  time  residing  at  the  Palace,  it  is  not  very  clear 
why,  but  presumably  in  the  absence  of  its  bishop. 

Like  other  rival  stars  in  other  social  firmaments, 
these  two  of  Lichfield  evidently  did  not  waste  much 
time  in  admiration  for  one  another,  and  various 
anecdotes  are  told  of  the  occasions  when  their  con- 
flicting claims  came  into  rather  sharp  collision.  In 
addition  to  these,  the  major  luminaries  of  the  place, 
there  was  a  whole  galaxy  of  minor  ones,  and,  high  in 
this  secondary  rank,  we  find  our  disciplinarian  with 
the  long  black  locks,  Mr.  Day.  At  the  time  of  Mr. 
Edgeworth's  arrival  at  Lichfield  that  erratic  friend  of 
his  was  engaged  in  what  was  perhaps  the  most  remark- 
able of  all  his  experiments  in  matrimony,  that,  namely, 
of  "  breeding  up  "  —  so  the  graceful  phrase  of  the  day 
ran  —  a  couple  of  young  girls,  whom  he  had  selected 
himself  from  a  foundling  hospital,  with  a  view  to 
finally  marrying  whichever  of  the  two  might  prove  to 
be  the  most  worthy  of  that  exalted  privilege.  Already 
one  of  them  —  Lucretia  —  had  been  discarded ;  but  the 
second,  Sabrina  —  names,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  of  Mr. 
Day's  own  bestowing — was  still  on  trial,  although  her 
prospects  of  happiness  were  being  seriously  menaced 
by  the  apparition  of  Miss  Sneyd,  whose  steps  were 
followed  by  a  whole  bevy  of  admiring  suitors. 

To  readers  of  our  belated  age,  the  most  interest- 
ing of  these  suitors  will  always  be  Major  Andr^,  the 


II.]  RICHARD  LOVELL  EDGE  WORTH  29 

ill-fated  victim  of  the  American  war  of  Independence, 
whose  devotion  to  the  fair  Honora  seems  to  have  been 
as  persistent  as  it  was  ill-requited.  In  place  of  labour- 
ing to  repeat  an  oft-told  tale,  let  me  here  indulge  in 
a  brief  extract  of  the  scene,  by  a  pen  which  has  never 
touched  any  subject  of  the  kind  without  embellishing 
it :  —  "  As  one  reads  the  old  letters  and  memoirs,  the 
echoes  of  laughter  reach  us.  One  can  almost  see  the 
young  folks  all  coming  together  out  of  the  Cathedral 
close,  where  so  much  of  their  time  was  passed,  the 
beautiful  Honora,  surrounded  by  friends  and  adorers, 
chaperoned  by  the  graceful  muse  her  senior,  also  much 
admired,  and  made  much  of.  .  .  .  So  they  passed  on, 
happy  and  contented  in  each  other's  company,  Honora 
in  the  midst,  beautiful,  stately,  reserved ;  she  too  was 
one  of  those  not  destined  to  be  old." 

No,  she  was  not  destined  to  grow  old;  and  either 
on  that  account,  or  owing  to  some  more  subtle  attrac- 
tion, even  the  broad  comedy  of  Mr.  Day's  love-making, 
even  Mr.  Edgeworth's  elaborate  comments  upon  that 
love-making,  fail  to  dissipate  a  certain  impression  of 
charm  which  hovers  still  about  her  name.  That  by  all 
romantic  precedent,  the  lover  of  her  choice  ought  to 
have  been,  neither  Mr.  Day,  whom  she  rejected,  nor  yet 
Mr.  Edgeworth,  whom  she  married,  but  Major  Andre, 
will  be  clear  to  every  reader  of  sentiment.  Unfortu- 
nately such  matters  are,  as  he  is  aware,  governed  by 
no  reasonable  or  ascertainable  laws.  Moreover,  as 
between  the  man  she  married,  and  the  man  whom  we 
consider  that  she  ought  to  have  married,  we  must 
remember  that  we  are  looking  at  both  of  them  to-day 
in  a  monstrously  unfair  light.  In  the  one  case  we  see 
Major  Andre  in  all  the  halo  of  an  early  and  a  tragic 


30  MARIA   EDGEWORTH  [chap.  ii. 

death,  a  death  so  tragic  that  even  the  driest,  the 
most  hostile,  of  historians  melts  a  little  when  he  comes 
to  speak  of  it.  On  the  other  hand,  we  mentally  behold 
the  excellent  Mr.  Edgeworth  throned  for  another  fifty 
years  as  the  very  type  of  the  prosperous  moralist; 
"  giving  his  little  senate  laws,"  and  crowned  with  a 
crown  of  indisputably  well-deserved  self-esteem.  In  the 
year  1770  all  this  was  entirely  different.  The  "  young 
and  gay  philosopher,"  as  his  friends  affectionately 
called  him,  was  then  only  twenty-six  years  of  age. 
As  for  his  fascination,  a  short  while  before  this  date, 
he  tells  us  himself  that  it  was  found  absolutely  neces- 
sary by  his  hostess  to  take  an  opportunity  of  publicly 
drinking  3Irs.  Edgeworth's  health,  in  order  to  dissipate 
any  unwarrantable  hopes  which  might  have  arisen  on 
his  account.  At  what  precise  period  he  fell  in  love 
with  Honora  Sneyd,  and  how  far,  at  this  early  stage 
of  their  acquaintance,  she  reciprocated  that  sentiment, 
we  do  not  know,  and  in  his  own  memoirs  he  is,  for 
once,  too  discreet  to  inform  us.  All  we  know  for 
certain  is  that  it  was  upon  the  earnest  expostulations 
of  his  austere-minded  friend  and  quondam  rival,  Mr. 
Day,  that  he  shortly  afterwards  left  Lichfield,  the  two 
friends  betaking  themselves  together  to  France,  jNIr. 
Edgeworth  having  under  his  charge  his  eldest  child, 
and  at  that  time  only  son,  Richard,  who  was  being 
brought  up  upon  the  strictest  principles  of  the  school 
of  Rousseau. 


CHAPTER  III 

FATHER   AND    DAUGHTER 

Of  Mr.  Edgeworth's  life  in  France  a  great  deal  is 
told  in  the  memoir  of  him,  but  a  great  deal  need 
not  upon  that  account  be  repeated  here.  Every- 
where, we  are  assured,  he  was  enormously  successful ; 
everywhere  he  was  courted,  invited,  and  requested  to 
prolong  his  stay.  A  lengthened  account  is  given 
of  his  engineering  feats  in  endeavouring  to  divert 
the  course  of  the  river  Ehone,  an  attempt  which 
seems  unfortunately  to  have  come  to  sudden  grief 
during  a  wholly  unlooked-for  flood.  To  a  modern 
reader  the  most  entertaining  part  of  his  experiences 
will,  perhaps,  be  found  to  be  his  meeting  in  Paris 
with  Rousseau,  whom  he  was  anxious  to  consult  upon 
the  education  of  Richard  Edgeworth,  the  younger. 
With  the  assistance  of  his  own  report,  we  can  still 
picture  to  ourselves  the  luckless  little  lad  being 
solemnly  led  up  and  introduced  by  his  father,  the 
"  young  and  gay  "  philosopher,  to  the  elder  and  more 
famous  one,  who  then  and  there  marched  him  off  for 
a  walk,  by  way  of  testing  his  character  and  general 
capabilities.  It  is  impossible  to  read  without  a  smile 
of  the  eminently  unphilosophic  wrath  expressed  by 
the  sage,  because  each  time  that  a  handsome  horse 
or  vehicle  passed  them  on  their  walk,  his  temporary 

31 


32  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

charge  —  a  child  of  seven  —  invariably  cried  out, 
" That's  an  English  horse !  "  "I  am  quite  sure  that's 
an  English  carriage ! "  —  a  view  which  he  solemnly  pro- 
nounced to  be  due  to  a  sadly  early  "  propensity  to 
party  prejudice,"  an  explanation  of  the  matter  which, 
strange  to  say,  the  boy's  father  unhesitatingly  and 
admiringly  adopted. 

The  stay  of  the  party  in  Paris  was,  however,  a  short 
one.  It  was  at  Lyons  that  all  three  settled  down  to 
remain  for  some  time,  and  it  was  there  that  Mr.  Day's 
calisthenic  purgatory  was  so  gallantly  undergone.  At 
Lyons  Mr.  Edgeworth  was  joined  for  a  short  time  by 
his  wife,  but  the  French  society  which  she  found  there 
did  not,  it  is  intimated,  suit  her,  a  fact  which  we  can 
readily  believe.  She  returned  in  any  case  to  England 
for  her  expected  confinement,  and  there,  in  Great 
Eussell  Street,  as  already  stated,  she  died.  When 
this  event  occurred,  Mr.  Edgeworth  was  still  in  France, 
but  the  news  of  it  sent  him  flying  back  to  England. 
How  far  relief  was  mingled  with  a  certain  amount  of 
compunction  we  do  not  know,  and  are  not  told.  All 
that  we  know  for  certain  is  that  he  was  met  by  the 
faithful  Day,  who  had  preceded  him  to  England  by 
some  months,  and  who  now  came  a  distance  of 
several  hundred  miles  expressly  to  tell  him  that  Ho- 
nora  Sneyd,  "although  surrounded  with  lovers,  was 
still  her  own  mistress." 

Upon  this  pregnant  hint,  Mr.  Edgeworth  at  once 
acted.  He  hastened  to  Lichfield,  where,  by  a  most 
singular  chance,  he  and  Miss  Sneyd  met  the  very  day 
of  his  arrival,  at  the  house  of  Doctor  Darwin.  There 
was  apparently  no  more  hesitation  upon  her  side 
than  upon  his  own,  and   the  result  was  that  within 


III.]  FATHER  AND  DAUGHTER  33 

four  months  of  his  wife's  death,  in  August  1773, 
they  were  married,  by  special  licence,  in  the  Ladies' 
Choir  of  the  Cathedral  of  that  town.  What  happened 
to  the  ci-devant  pupil  of  Rousseau  at  this  juncture 
of  the  family  affairs  we  have  no  information.  One 
very  interesting  point  with  regard  to  him  Mr.  Edge- 
worth,  with  his  customary  frankness,  does  reveal  to 
us,  which  is  that,  as  the  result  of  these  various  experi- 
ments, the  boy  contracted  so  marked  a  loathing  for 
education  of  every  sort,  that  it  was  found  impossible 
to  induce  him  to  learn  anything,  or  even  to  remain  at 
a  school.  It  was  a  relief  therefore  to  all  concerned 
when  he  exhibited  a  willingness  to  go  to  sea.  From 
the  sea,  to  which  he  was  then  and  there  sent,  he 
apparently  drifted  to  America,  where  —  to  finish  his 
adventures  —  he  in  due  course  of  time  married,  and 
after  a  single  visit  to  his  family  at  Clifton,  returned  to 
America  and  died  there;  the  only  one  of  Mr.  Edge- 
worth's  many  children  to  whom  Edgeworthstown 
seems  never  at  any  time  to  have  been  a  home. 

The  three  little  girls,  on  the  other  hand,  were  at 
once  sent  for  from  Great  Russell  Street,  and  seem  to 
have  received  from  Mrs.  Honora  Edgeworth  the 
fullest  motherly  care,  if  also  an  occasional  touch  of 
that  motherly  austerity  which  was  then  regarded, 
not  merely  as  becoming,  but  indispensable.  That 
Mr.  Edgeworth  was  sincerely  devoted  to  his  new 
wife,  and  that  his  second  marriage  was,  unlike  its 
predecessor,  a  thoroughly  successful  one,  there  can  be 
no  question.  When,  not  many  years  later,  the  seeds 
of  consumption,  checked  for  a  time,  once  more  began 
to  reveal  themselves  in  the  poor  young  woman,  her 
husband  at  once  left  Ireland,  and  took  her  first  to 


34  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

Lichfield,  to  consult  their  friend  Dr.  Darwin,  after- 
wards to  a  succession  of  temporary  homes,  in  hopes 
that  a  drier  climate,  if  it  did  not  effect  a  cure,  might 
at  least  cause  some  delay  in  the  course  of  the  disease. 
Few  efforts,  perhaps,  are  more  puzzling  in  this 
rather  puzzling  world  than  the  effort  to  judge  dis- 
passionately of  the  strength  of  an  emotion,  when  that 
emotion  is  expressed  in  language  the  reverse  of  any- 
thing we  could  ourselves  even  imagine  using  under 
similar  circumstances.  That,  in  spite  of  this  hin- 
drance, in  spite  of  his  elaborate  rhetoric  and  stilted 
utterances,  we  are  able  to  perceive  that  Mr.  Edgeworth 
was  genuinely  fond  of  his  wife,  and  genuinely  sorry 
to  lose  her,  must  be  set  down  to  his  credit.  There 
are  even  one  or  two  incidents  recorded  in  his  autobio- 
graphy—  such  as  the  dropping  of  the  wedding-ring 
from  off  her  thin  finger,  and  its  falling  with  a  light 
sound  to  the  ground  —  which  are  quite  the  sort  of 
incident  which  a  man  under  the  circumstances  might 
note,  and  might  afterwards  recall.  On  the  other  hand, 
what  are  we  to  say  with  regard  to  the  following  letter, 
written  to  his  daughter  Maria,  while  he  was  actually 
sitting  beside  the  poor  young  woman's  dead  body  ? 
Mr.  Hare,  in  the  Life  and  Letters,  describes  it  as  ''  a  very 
touching  letter."  "  Touching,"  like  "  elegant,"  "  poetic," 
"  gentlemanlike,"  and  some  other  words,  seems  to  mean 
absolutely  different  things  to  different  minds.  The 
only  fair  course,  therefore,  seems  to  be  to  give  the 
letter  itself,  and  to  leave  it  to  be  judged.  Here 
it  is :  — 

"My  DEAR  Daughter,  —  At  six  o'clock  on  Thursday  morn- 
ing your  excellent  mother  expired  in  my  arms.  She  now  lies 
dead  beside  me,  and  I  know  I  am  doing  what  would  give  her 


III.]  FATHER  AND   DAUGHTER  35 

pleasure,  if  she  were  capable  of  feeling  anything,  by  writing 
to  you  at  this  time  to  fix  her  excellent  image  in  your  mind. 

"  As  you  grow  older  and  become  acquainted  with  more  of 
my  friends,  you  will  hear  from  every  mouth  the  most  exalted 
character  of  your  incomparable  mother.  You  will  be  con- 
vinced by  your  own  reflections  on  her  conduct,  that  she 
fulfilled  the  part  of  a  mother  towards  you  and  towards  your 
sisters,  without  partiality  towards  her  own,  or  servile  indul- 
gence towards  mine.  Her  heart,  conscious  of  rectitude,  was 
above  the  fear  of  raising  suspicions  to  her  disadvantage  in  the 
mind  of  your  father,  or  in  the  minds  of  your  relations.  .  .  . 

"  Continue,  my  dear  daughter,  the  desire  which  you  feel  of 
becoming  amiable,  prudent,  and  of  use.  The  ornamental 
parts  of  a  character  with  such  an  understanding  as  yours 
necessarily  ensue;  but  true  judgment  and  sagacity  in  the 
choice  of  friends,  and  the  regulation  of  your  behaviour,  can 
be  only  had  from  reflection  and  from  being  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  what  experience  teaches,  in  general  too  late,  that 
to  be  happy  we  must  be  Good. 

"  God  bless  you,  and  make  you  ambitious  of  that  valuable 
praise  which  the  amiable  character  of  your  dear  mother  forces 
from  the  virtuous  and  the  wise.  My  writing  to  you  in  my 
present  situation  will,  my  dearest  daughter,  be  remembered 
by  you  as  the  strongest  proof  of  the  love  of  your  approving 
and  affectionate  father, 

Richard  Lovell  Edgeworth." 

What  is  one  to  say  ?  Are  such  sentiments  indeed 
touching  ?  Is  it  even  conceivable  that  a  man  should 
sit  down  under  similar  circumstances  to  write  such  a 
letter  ?  —  to  indite,  I  ought  to  say,  so  truly  monumental 
an  epistle  ?  There  seems  no  course  open  to  us  but 
to  hold  up  our  hands  in  amazement,  and  to  pass  on 
to  the  next  little  incident  in  this  strange,  eventful 
history.  That  incident  was  the  marriage  of  the 
sorrowing  widower  to  the  sister  of  the  wife  he  had 
just  lost  —  an  arrangement  which,  he   is   careful  to 


36  MAKIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap, 

assure  us,  had  been  earnestly  pressed  upon  him  by  the 
latter  herself. 

A  feelmg  of  wonder,  not  unmixed  "with  awe,  is  apt 
to  steal  over  the  mind  of  a  modern  reader  as  he 
studies  these  remarkable  self-revelations  on  the  part 
of  a  half-forgotten  moralist.  We  of  to-day  are  wont  to 
accuse  ourselves  —  perhaps  one  another  —  of  a  ten- 
dency to  lay  everything  bare  before  an  undiscriminat- 
ing  public;  to,  as  it  has  been  more  picturesquely  worded 
—  "sell  our  souls  for  pence;  just  God,  how  few!" 
Yet  even  to-day,  would  it  be  so  very  easy  to  find  a 
gentleman  who  would  be  candid  enough  to  publish 
to  the  world  that  the  lady  whom  he  had  decided 
to  marry  was  upon  the  whole,  of  all  her  sisters, 
the  one  least  pleasing  to  his  taste,  and  that  he 
himself  is,  he  is  aware,  equally  little  attractive  to 
her,  but  that  they  have  made  up  their  minds  to 
marry,  because  the  lamented  sister  of  the  one,  and 
wife  of  the  other,  had  advised  that  step  ?  Such, 
in  precise  terms,  is  the  explanation  afforded  to  the 
public  by  Mr.  Edgeworth,  and  the  most  remarkable 
part  of  the  affair  is,  that  the  marriage  so  arranged 
seems  to  have  been  an  unqualified  success,  if  anything 
more  successful  than  had  been  the  preceding  one. 
That,  apart  altogether  from  the  sentimental  side  of 
the  affair,  there  was  also  a  legal  one  to  be  considered, 
is  a  fact  which  does  not  seem  to  have  troubled  any 
one,  although  the  law  as  regards  the  marriage  of  a 
deceased  wife's  sister  being  the  same  then  as  now,  one 
would  have  thought  some  little  difficulty  might  have 
arisen  on  that  score,  especially  with  a  landed  property 
to  be  inherited.  One  clergyman,  upon  an  explana- 
tion of  the  circumstances,  seems  to  have  shown  some 


III.]  FATHER  AND  DAUGHTER  37 

little  hesitation,  and  the  marriage  had  in  consequence 
to  be  for  a  while  delayed.  It  came  off,  however, 
shortly  afterwards,  and,  by  way  of  a  small  crowning 
touch  of  oddity,  upon  Christmas  Day,  of  all  days  in 
the  year,  at  St.  Andrew's  Church,  Holborn,  "in  the 
presence,"  so  Mr.  Edgeworth  is  careful  to  tell  us, 
"of  my  first  wife's  brother,  Mr.  Elers,  his  lady, 
and  Mr.  Day." 

That  Mr.  Day  —  the  rejected  suitor  of  both  these 
Miss  Sneyds  —  should  have  been  present  on  that 
auspicious  occasion  seems  to  be  only  natural,  and 
appropriate  to  the  character  of  the  whole  proceeding. 
The  friendship  between  him  and  Mr.  Edgeworth  had 
not,  unfortunately,  very  much  longer  to  run,  the  poor 
disciplinarian  meeting  his  death  a  few  years  later, 
under  what  were  at  least  singularly  appropriate  circum- 
stances for  a  disciplinarian,  namely,  by  his  being  flung 
from  a  young  horse,  which  it  was  his  innocent  belief 
that  he  alone  could  subdue.  Mr.  Edgeworth  brings 
his  own  record  to  an  abrupt  end  in  the  middle  of  a 
sentence,  about  the  time  of  his  third  marriage,  and  it 
was  left  to  his  daughter  Maria  to  continue  the  history 
of  the  family,  beginning  with  their  arrival  at  Edge- 
worthstown,  an  event  which  took  place  in  the  summer 
of  the  year  1782. 

Unlike  the  first  arrival,  this  second  descent  of  the 
family  upon  its  ancestral  home  proved  to  be  an  event 
of  no  temporary  or  provisional  character.  On  the 
contrary,  Mr.  Edgeworth  arrived  on  this  occasion  pre- 
ceded or  accompanied,  in  true  patriarchal  fashion,  by 
menservants  and  by  maidservants,  by  a  brand-new 
wife,  by  two  quite  separate  sets  of  children  by  two 
previous  wives,  and  —  a  detail  which  even  the  patriarchs 


38  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

themselves  do  not  seem  to  have  found  necessary  —  his 
circle  was  further  enlarged  by  two  unmarried  sisters 
of  his  late  and  of  his  present  wife,  two  Miss  Sneyds, 
who  from  that  time  forward  until  after  his  own  death, 
thirty-five  years  later,  were  to  find  their  permanent 
home  under  his  roof. 

Such  a  circumstance  may  be  taken,  I  think,  unhesi- 
tatingly as  a  testimony  of  the  amiability  of  all  con- 
cerned, and  not  least  for  that  of  the  master  of  the 
house  himself.  In  sober  truth,  Mr.  Edgeworth  was 
precisely  one  of  those  men  whose  qualities  show  their 
best  and  most  glowing  side  to  the  devotees  inside  their 
own  family,  and  only  become  perceptibly  spotted  with 
absurdity  when  confronted  by  the  gaze  of  a  colder 
and  a  more  critical  outside  circle.  An  autocrat  he 
was,  and  had  every  intention  of  being.  "Wives,  sisters- 
in-law,  daughters,  tenants,  and  the  like,  were  all  re- 
garded by  him  as  so  many  satellites,  revolving  gently, 
as  by  a  law  of  nature,  around  the  pedestal  upon  which 
he  stood  alone,  in  a  graceful  or  commanding  attitude. 
This  point  conceded,  everything  else,  however,  went 
delightfully,  and  a  more  benevolent  embodiment  of 
the  principle  of  autocracy  has  perhaps  never  flourished 
since  that  institution  was  introduced  upon  a  much- 
ruled  planet. 

It  was  the  very  benevolence  of  this  autocratic  stand- 
point which  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  believe  that 
anyone  belonging  to  him  —  especially  a  mere  daughter, 
a  member  of  the  less  important  half  of  his  enormous 
brood  —  could  fail  to  be  the  better  for  carrying  on  her 
little  pursuits  under  his  direct  eye,  and  subject  in  every 
detail  to  his  approval  or  disapproval.  That  he  was 
in  essentials  one  of  the  best-intentioned  of  fathers  is 


III.]  FATHER   AND   DAUGHTER  39 

certain,  yet  few  bad,  few  merely  indifferent  fathers, 
have  inflicted  upon  a  gifted  sou  or  daughter  worse 
injuries,  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view,  than  he  did. 
He  not  merely  accentuated,  he  actually  lifted  into  the 
light  of  a  solemn  duty,  what  was  by  nature  the  most 
serious  of  Maria  Edgeworth's  mental  failings  —  a  lack, 
namely,  of  imagination,  one  which  under  his  fostering 
care  grew  and  swelled,  until  it  amounted  to  something 
very  like  a  kindly  and  tolerant  contempt  for  everything 
which  that  word  conveys. 

This,  far  more  than  any  actual  interference  with  the 
text  of  her  books,  is  what  arouses  the  wrath  of  her 
admirers,  and  constitutes  the  least  forgivable  of  his 
misdoings  as  a  father.  Everything  else  —  even  the 
amazing  prefaces,  which  were,  after  all,  removable, 
and  have,  I  believe,  disappeared  from  all  the  later 
editions ;  even  the  deification  of  the  great  goddess 
Utility,  and  the  chanting,  in  season  and  out  of  season, 
of  her  arid  and  scraggy  perfections  ;  even  the  "  Fe 
Fo  Fum  "  objurgations,  hurled  like  brickbats  at  poor 
"  Puss-in-Boots  "  and  "  Jack  and  the  Beanstalk  "  —  all 
these,  and  any  number  of  similar  peccadilloes,  might 
have  been  forgiven,  if  only  he  would  have  consented, 
in  the  good  old  nursery  phrase,  "  to  keep  hisself  to 
hisself."  It  was  his  inability  apparently  to  do  so  which 
constituted  the  worst  of  his  indiscretions,  and  which 
brings  upon  him  the  wrath  of  the  few  —  for  few,  I 
fear,  they  must  nowadays  be  reckoned  —  who  cherish 
towards  Maria  Edgeworth  herself  something  approach- 
ing to  a  genuine  enthusiasm. 

The  harm  undoubtedly  came  chiefly  from  the  mere 
superabundance  of  his  energy  and  activity.  To  such  a 
degree  did  these  qualities  overflow  in  him,  that  what- 


40  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

ever  was  being  said  or  done,  above  all  whatever  was 
being  written,  it  was  absolutely  indispensable  that  he 
should  be  in  the  thick  of  it,  if  not  as  principal,  at  least 
as  arbitrator  and  general  overseer.  "  Edgeworth  must 
write,  or  he  would  hurst ! "  was  said  of  him  by  a  con- 
temporary. No  one  would  have  desired  so  painful  a 
domestic  catastrophe,  and  all  that  could  have  been 
wished  is  that  it  might  have  been  able  to  be  suggested 
to  him  by  some  prudent  bystander  that  he  should  write 
his  own  books  in  his  own  dignified  fashion,  and  should 
allow  his  daughter  to  carry  out  her  own  little  ideas  in 
such  a  manner,  and  with  such  aims,  as  benevolent 
nature  might  suggest. 

Whenever,  even  for  a  time,  she  escaped  from  his 
influence,  any  discriminating  eye  can  perceive  the 
difference  at  once.  We  have  Mrs.  Barbauld's  positive 
assurance  that  Castle  Rackrent  was  written  entirely 
without  his  advice  or  supervision,  and  even  without 
such  an  assurance,  its  intrinsic  qualities  would  have 
convinced  us  of  the  fact.  A  still  clearer  case  is  afforded 
by  the  letters.  Those  written  familiarly  —  especially 
those  addressed  by  Miss  Edgeworth  to  her  aunt  or  to 
her  cousin,  Sophy  Ruxton — letters  written  obviously 
at  top-speed,  and  without  a  thought  of  preservation, 
far  less  of  publication,  —  are,  to  my  mind,  amongst  the 
best  of  their  kind  we  possess,  perhaps  the  very  best 
merely  descriptive  letters  ever  written  by  a  woman  in 
English.  On  the  other  hand,  the  moment  she  had 
anything  to  write  which  seemed  to  require  considera- 
tion —  anything  which  for  some  reason  clogged  her  pen 
—  it  is  curious  to  note  how  instantly,  as  if  under  com- 
pulsion, she  reverted  to  the  elaborately  complimentary 
style,  to  the  brobdingnagian  phraseology  of  her  father's 


in.]  FATHER  AND  DAUGHTER  41 

best  and  most  superior  Johnsonese.  Having  already- 
afforded  the  reader  an  opportunity  of  studying  one 
letter  of  Mr,  Edgeworth's,  I  feel  certain  that  he  must 
desire  to  see  another.  The  following  —  written  a  few 
days  after  the  foregoing  letter  to  his  daughter  —  will 
serve  to  show  how  the  same  domestic  affliction  would 
be  treated  by  a  dignified  moralist  when  addressing  the 
outside  world.  It  occurs  in  an  unpublished  letter 
from  Mr.  Wedgwood  to  Dr.  Darwin,  which  I  have 
been  kindly  allowed  to  use,  and  the  allusion  to 
Mr.  Edgeworth  runs  as  follows :  — 

"  Upon  Tuesday  I  had  a  letter  from  Mr.  Edgeworth,  ad- 
dressed to  W.  and  B.,^  which  he  begins  by  saying  —  '  One  cir- 
cumstance, and  only  one,  in  our  connection  is  disagreeable  to 
me,  which  is  that  I  am  restrained  from  having  things  of 
Etrurian  manufacture,  because  I  am  not  treated  in  two  dif- 
ferent characters,  as  a  stranger  and  a  friend.  Let  me  address 
this  letter  to  the  firm  of  W.  and  B.,^  to  ask  whether  I  can 
have  twelve  profiles  of  my  dear  Mrs.  Edgeworth,  done  in 
white  or  pale  blue,  from  a  profile  by  Mrs.  Harrington,  and  an 
excellent  picture  by  Smart  —  I  lost  her  Sunday  —  and  you 
both  know  she  is  a  real  loss  to,  —  your  friend, 

Richard  Lovell  Edgeworth.'  " 

Such  a  letter  cannot  fail  to  please  !  The  following 
extracts  are  from  two  other  letters  of  Mr.  Edgeworth, 
written  about  eleven  years  later.  The  "  Mr,  Euxton  " 
so  ceremoniously  addressed,  it  may  be  as  well  to 
explain,  was  the  writer's  brother-in-law:  — 

R.  L.  Edgeworth  to  Mr.  Buxton. 

"Prince's  Buildings,  Clifton. 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Ruxton,  —  I  am  impatient  to  thank  you 
for  your  great  kindness  to  my  young  people,  and  for  your 

1  Firm  of  Westwood  and  Bentley,  Etruria. 


42  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

sincere  and  friendly  offers  of  assistance  in  their  journey.  I  do 
assure  you  that  there  is  nobody  now  in  the  world  from  whom 
I  am  more  willing  to  receive  obligations,  or  in  whose  prudence 
and  activity  I  have  more  confidence.  When  life  begins  to 
move  distinctly  downwards,  it  gives  me  the  greatest  present 
pleasure,  and  the  most  certain  hopes  of  future  satisfaction,  to 
perceive  that  the  husband  of  my  beloved  sister  becomes  every 
day  more  united  to  me.  .  .  . 

"  I  thank  you  for  the  kind  manner  in  which  you  informed 
us  of  the  death  of  poor  Thomas  :  my  sister's  letters  had  led 
us  to  expect  it.  Mrs.  Day  also  died  suddenly  the  twenty- 
first  of  last  month,  a  few  days  after  she  left  us.  There  does 
not,  now  that  little  Thomas  is  gone,  exist  even  a  person  of  the 
same  name  as  Mr.  Day.  Our  poor  little  boy  enjoyed  all  the 
pleasures  of  which  his  short  and  infant  existence  was  capable. 
From  Sophy  he  had  indulgence,  attention,  and  amusement, 
and  during  his  painful  illness  all  the  tenderness  and  care  of 
your  excellent  wife.  My  compassion  and  solicitude  for  them 
was  not  less  than  for  the  child;  but  I  hope  that  the  remem- 
brance of  their  own  goodness  will  soon  obliterate  the  painful 
impressions  of  his  miserable  end,"  etc.  etc. 


Poor  little  "  Thomas  Day  "  !  It  is  difficult  to  resist 
a  momentary  sensation  of  pity  for  so  evidently  un- 
necessary a  little  item,  whose  exit  from  a  well-filled 
planet  evoked  such  remarkably  tepid  demonstrations 
of  regret  on  the  part  of  his  dignified  and  sonorous 
parent.  That  Mr.  Edgeworth  may  have  been  wiser 
in  the  matter  than  the  more  sympathetic  aunts  and 
sisters  is,  however,  conceivable.  At  all  events,  before 
condemning  him,  we  must  take  into  consideration 
the  somewhat  exceptional  nature  of  his  position, 
seeing  that  few  of  us  are  privileged  to  enter  quite 
accurately  into  the  sensations  of  a  man  who,  if  he 
has  just  lost  one  small  son,  has  still  the  consciousness 
of  being  the  happy  father  of  some  fourteen  or  fifteen 


III.]  FATHER  AND   DAUGHTER  43 

living  children.  The  views  of  the  patriarchs  have  in 
this  respect  never  been  revealed  iu  all  their  fulness, 
else  we  might  find  that  even  those  unequalled  fosterers 
of  the  primal  affections  were  in  the  habit  of  accepting 
incidents  of  the  kind  when  occurring  in  their  own 
families,  with  something  of  the  stoicism  born  of 
habit ! 


CHAPTER  IV 

ARRIVAL    IN   IRELAND FIRST    BOOKS 

We  have  now  reached  what  —  at  any  rate  to  Irish 
readers  —  will  always  be  a  very  interesting  point  in 
Maria  Edgeworth's  life,  her  arrival,  namely,  in  Ireland 
in  the  year  1782,  from  which  date,  with  the  exception 
of  a  good  many  visits,  one  stay  at  Clifton,  and  two 
rather  lengthened  sojourns  on  the  continent,  she  may 
be  said  to  have  practically  never  left  it  again. 

Even  those  to  whom  the  ground  is  fairly  familiar 
will  find  a  considerable  difficulty  in  picturing  accurately 
to  themselves  Irish  social  life  as  it  existed  towards 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Three  enor- 
mously important  events  —  the  Rebellion  of  '98,  the 
Union,  and  the  Famine  —  lie  between  it  and  us ;  all 
three  of  these  having  a  marked,  and  all  three  in  several 
respects  a  very  disastrous,  effect  upon  that  social  life. 
Of  those  three  events  the  Famine  was  immeasurably 
the  most  revolutionary  in  its  results.  The  Rebellion, 
although  it  wrote  itself  in  blood  and  horror  across  a 
considerable  part  of  the  country,  would  in  all  pro- 
bability not  have  had  any  very  lengthened  influence, 
but  for  the  fact  that  the  memory  of  it  has  ever  since 
served  as  a  political  rallying-point.  When  once  the 
panic  aroused  on  one  side,  when  once  the  bitter 
resentment  which  its  suppression  awoke  on  the  other, 

41 


CHAP.  IV.]    ARRIVAL  IN  IKELAND  — FIRST  BOOKS    45 

had  died  down,  matters  would — in  fact  to  a  great 
degree  did — resume  their  wonted  course.  The  Union 
again,  altliough  a  much  more  important  event,  chiefly 
affected  the  upper  classes,  and  the  well-to-do  citizens 
of  Dublin.  It  stands  before  us  at  the  present  date 
rather  as  a  great  political,  than  as  a  great  natural 
landmark.  In  spite  of  the  inevitable  changes  which 
such  a  shifting  of  the  seat  of  government  brought 
about;  in  spite  of  what  may  be  called  the  unnatural 
increase  of  population  which  occurred  in  the  next 
forty  years ;  in  spite  of  O'Connell  and  Catholic 
emancipation ;  in  spite  of  everything  and  everybody, 
up  to  the  time  of  the  great  Famine  the  broad  features 
of  Ireland,  and  of  Irish  social  life,  had  remained 
unchanged.  When,  further  on  in  this  book,  the  reader 
arrives  at  the  letters  of  Miss  Edgeworth  which 
describe  the  country  of  the  Martins  in  Connemara 
— letters  written  not  many  years  before  that  event — 
he  will  be  able  to  judge  how  vast  the  chasm  is 
which  lies  between  what  is  there  described,  and  any- 
thing which  is  even  remotely  conceivable  as  existing 
in  Ireland  at  the  present  time.  Compared  to  such 
patriarchal  chieftains  as  the  Martins  of  Ballinahinch, 
the  Edgeworths  of  Edgeworthstown  were,  of  course, 
small  fry.  Even  there,  however — in  fact  all  over  the 
country — the  same  social  tone,  the  same  general 
iaeas  of  life  prevailed.  Once  settled  down  in  his 
ancestral  dominions,  Mr.  Edgeworth  found  himself 
in  what  to  him  must  have  seemed  the  very  appro- 
priate position  of  a  little  local  king.  Like  such  a  petty 
monarch  he  had  his  levees,  his  courtiers,  his  retainers, 
— more  or  less  ragged :  — like  such  an  one  he  held  his 
courts  of  justice,  and  distributed  rewards  and  punish- 


46  MARIA   EDGE  WORTH  [chap. 

ments — at  any  rate  of  a  minor  kind — pretty  much 
according  to  his  own  ideas  of  justice  or  expediency. 

Being,  as  has  been  seen,  a  despot,  and  a  benevolent 
one,  the  arrangement  worked  admirably.  Nothing  can 
be  more  harmonious  than  the  picture  which  comes 
before  us,  as  we  look  back  from  our  vantage-ground  of 
over  a  hundred  years,  and  see  that  large,  variously 
assorted  family  party  gathered  together  at  Edge- 
worthstown,  during  the  years  which  followed  their 
arrival  in  1782.  Like  the  majority  of  Irish  resi- 
dences, the  house  itself  belongs  to  that  rather  non- 
descript type  of  architecture  which  depends  for  its 
escape  from  absolute  ugliness  mainly  upon  the  taste  and 
intelligence  of  its  immediate  owners.  A  wilderness  of 
neglected  garden  and  shrubbery  surrounded  it  at  the 
date  of  their  arrival,  which  became  gradually  subdued 
into  order  as  time  went  on.  In  later  years  Maria 
Edgeworth  was  herself  the  chief  gardener,  and  was, 
moreover,  a  keen  and  practical  one,  in  days  when  the 
variety  was  very  much  rarer  than  it  has  since  become. 
This,  however,  was  long  afterwards,  and  at  the  date  I 
am  speaking  of  she  simply  took  her  share  in  the 
various  duties,  large  and  small,  which  fell  to  the  lot 
of  the  different  members  of  so  multifarious  a  group  of 
people. 

To  a  good  many  girls  of  her  age,  the  mere  size 
of  that  ever-growing  family  — whose  numbers  are  to 
a  biographer,  I  confess,  baffling  —  would  have  been  no 
small  trial.  Not  so  to  Maria  Edgeworth.  Children 
were  for  her,  all  through  her  long  life,  not  merely 
no  trouble,  but  a  stimulus,  a  rest,  and  an  amusement. 
It  was  only  the  peremptory  orders  of  her  father  and 
stepmother  which  hindered  her  from  converting  herself 


IV.]        ARKIVAL  IN  IRELAND  — FIRST  BOOKS  47 

into  the  play-fellow,  slave,  and  maid-of-all-work  of 
her  well-nigh  countless  younger  brothers  and  sisters. 
One  small  boy  (Henry  by  name)  was  made  over  from 
the  first  to  her  especial  care,  and  retained  until  his 
death  a  particular  niche  in  her  large  and  loving  heart. 
It  was  for  his  benefit,  and  for  the  benefit  of  those 
who  came  nearest  to  him  in  age,  that  her  earliest 
children's  tales  were  composed  —  a  point  to  which  I 
shall  have  to  return  presently. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  from  the  first,  and  while 
she  was  still  in  years  a  mere  school-girl,  her  father 
seems  to  have  associated  her  with  all  his  own  work  at 
Edgeworthstown.  She  rode  her  cob  or  pony  "  Dapple  " 
beside  him,  when  he  went  his  rounds;  she  kept  the 
accounts  of  the  whole  expenditure  under  his  directions ; 
she  even  seems  to  have  acted  for  him  as  a  sort  of  clerk 
or  sub-agent.  Thirty  years  later,  the  critic  of  the 
Quarterly,  wishing  to  make  himself  particularly  un- 
pleasant, asserted  roundly  that  she  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  hiding  in  her  father's  magistrates'  room  "  for 
the  purpose  of  taking  notes  of  the  peculiar  manners  or 
expressions  of  the  litigants."  If  she  did  so,  the  sin 
would  not  have  struck  most  of  us  as  great,  but  there  is 
no  reason  for  supposing  that  she  did  anything  of  the 
kind.  There  are  people  — pace  the  Quarterly  Keviewer 
—  who  are  able  to  see,  hear,  and  perceive,  without 
hiding  themselves  for  the  purpose,  or  even  listening 
behind  keyholes ! 

That  this  early  acquaintance  with  life  at  first-hand 
was  of  immense  advantage  to  her  as  a  novelist  there 
can  be  no  question.  It  freed  her  from  that  rather 
cramping  atmosphere  of  minute  preoccupations  which 
is  apt  to  surround  very  young  girls.     Further  than 


48  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

this,  it  brouglit  her  into  genuine,  and  not  merely  into 
artificial,  relations  with  the  tenants  and  the  peasant 
class  generally  —  a  benefit  which  it  is  difficult  to  over- 
estimate. 

That  she  had  sustained  no  slight  loss  in  having 
spent  the  irrecoverable  years  of  childhood  and  early 
youth  in  what  were  not  the  scenes  she  was  destined  to 
commemorate,  I  have  already  stated  to  be  my  opinion. 
This  is  a  point  upon  which  I  am  so  clearly  at  vari- 
ance with  her  previous  biographers,  that  it  evidently 
is   one   which   admits  of   considerable  divergence  of 
opinion.     Mr.  Hare  lays  stress  upon  the  great  advan- 
tage  Maria   Edge  worth    enjoyed    in    being    able    to 
study   the    country   with    what   were    comparatively 
mature  eyes.     "Maria  was  now,"  he   says,  "fifteen, 
and  was  old  enough  therefore  to  be  interested  in  all 
the  peculiarities  of  the  Irish,  as  contrasted  with  the 
English  character."    In  the  earlier  Life  Miss  Zimmern 
is  even  more  emphatic :  —  "  It  was  her  [Maria's]  good 
fortune  and  ours,"  she  says,  "  that  at  an  age  when  the 
mind  is  most  impressionable  she  came  into  these  novel 
scenes,  in  lieu  of  having  lived  in  their  midst  from 
childhood,  when  it  is  unlikely  that  she  would  so  well 
have  seized  their  salient  traits." 

It  may  be  so.  The  point  is  not  in  any  case  one 
upon  which  to  dogmatise.  To  have  had  the  right,  so  to 
speak,  to  a  childhood  in  an  Irish  country  home,  and  to 
have  been —  also,  so  to  speak — defrauded  of  that  right ; 
to  have  had  to  spend  the  chief —  it  is  hardly  an  exag- 
geration to  say,  the  onhj  years  of  true  impressionability 
in  Great  Eussell  Street,  in  Derby,  in  Lichfield,  and 
Upper  Wimpole  Street,  seems  to  me,  I  will  confess,  for 
the  early  years  of  an  Irish  romancer,  a  state  of  affairs 


IV.]        ARRIVAL  IN  IRELAND —FIRST  BOOKS  49 

almost  too  regrettable  to  contemplate.  If  now  and 
then,  even  in  the  best  of  Miss  Edge  worth's  books,  a 
certain  sense  of  unreality  presents  itself ;  if  now  and 
then  a  momentary  haze  of  falsity  seems  to  float 
between  an  Irish  reader  and  the  page,  it  is,  I  think, 
only  fair  that  we  should  set  down  such  passing  slips 
largely  to  the  fact  that  she  came  to  the  country  which 
she  is  undertaking  to  describe  almost  as  a  grown-up 
woman. 

That  she  lost  no  time  when  she  did  arrive  is  at  least 
certain.  Eyes  and  ears  were  alike  employed,  and  to 
the  best  possible  purpose.  Long  afterwards,  in  a 
letter  to  a  correspondent,  she  entered  to  an  unusual 
degree  into  an  explanation  of  the  method —  or  possibly 
absence  of  method  —  which  enabled  her  to  place  herself 
at  a  point  of  view  so  extravagantly  remote  from  her 
own  as  always  to  awaken  astonishment  that  she  should 
so  nearly  have  attained  it  as  she  did.  This  is  a  point 
which  had  better,  however,  be  reserved  till  we  are 
considering  her  Irish  books,  especially  the  best  of 
them,  Castle  Rackrent  —  the  best  Irish  novel  or  story, 
in  the  present  writer's  opinion,  which  has  as  yet  seen 
the  light. 

Nearly  a  dozen  years  were  to  pass  after  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  arrival  at  Edgeworthstown  before  she  began, 
even  tentatively,  to  try  her  hand  at  an  Irish  tale.  Her 
first  literary  efforts  were  in  quite  a  different  direction, 
partly  as  her  father's  assistant  —  a  sort  of  acolyte  under 
him  at  the  shrine  of  the  great  goddess  Utility  —  partly 
on  her  own  initiative,  Avith  the  first  of  that  long  array 
of  children's  tales  which,  if  far  from  constituting  her 
chief  claims  to  recognition  as  a  writer,  at  least  carried 
her  fame  at  the  date  in  which  they  were  written  further 


50  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

than  it  has  always  been  the  lot  of  even  the  highest 
achievements  of  genius  to  carry  their  creator's  fame. 
Taking  her  writings  categorically,  we  find  the  first 
of  them  —  begun  when  she  was  little  over  sixteen  years 
of  age  —  to  have  been  a  translation  of  Madame  de 
Genlis's  Ad^le  et  Tli^odore.  This  translation  was  never 
apparently  finished,  Mr.  Holcroft,  a  novelist  of  that 
date,  having  been  found  to  be  engaged  upon  the  same 
task,  although,  since  we  hear  of  its  being  presented  by 
Mr.  Edgeworth  to  the  illustrious  author  of  the  original, 
it  must  have  got  into  some  more  or  less  presentable 
form.  The  next  of  her  writings  —  also  undertaken  at 
her  father's  orders  —  finally  appeared  under  the  title 
of  Letters  to  Literary  Ladies,  and  is  a  conscientious 
little  bit  of  task-work,  setting  forth  the  advantages 
of  a  mild  amount  of  cultivation  as  applied  to  the 
"female"  mind.  About  the  same  time  Mr.  Edge- 
worth  began  the  earlier  chapters  of  what  eventually 
grew  into  two  substantial  volumes  as  Practical  Edu- 
cation, a  work  in  which  his  daughter's  share  was 
avowedly  that  of  assistant  and  collaborator  only. 
By  way  of  popularising  the  views  therein  expressed, 
and  possibly  as  a  relaxation  from  the  labour  it 
entailed,  she  began  to  amuse  herself  by  writing  down 
a  succession  of  little  children's  stories,  which  were 
eventually  collected  under  the  formidable  —  to  a  child, 
the  absolutely  incomprehensible  —  title  of  Tlie  Parentis 
Assistant. 

These  tales,  and  the  yet  more  elementary  ones  which 
were  afterwards  published  as  Early  Lessons,  were  begun 
without  any  idea  of  publication,  simply  for  the  benefit, 
as  has  been  said,  of  her  particular  charge  "little 
Henry,"  and  of  such  of  the  small  brothers  and  sisters 


IV.]        ARRIVAL   IN  IRELAND  — FIRST  BOOKS  51 

as  came  nearest  to  him  in  age.  They  were  written 
out  upon  a  schoolroom  slate;  were  altered;  were 
added  to ;  were  approved  of,  or  summarily  contemned, 
entirely  according  to  the  verdict  of  her  short-petti- 
coated  judges.  To  say  that  the  latter  were  safer 
critics  than  her  redoubtable  father  is  certainly  not 
to  assert  too  much !  Moreover,  that  the  stories 
themselves  owe  their  really  extraordinary  vitality 
largely  to  this  method  of  production  we  cannot 
doubt.  They  are  stories  for  children,  written,  not 
from  above,  but  from  a  level ;  from  the  point  of 
view  of  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed.  If  we 
take  up  one  of  these  little  fat  volumes  in  its  earliest 
and  most  attractive  form,  and  try  to  conceive  of  it  as 
proceeding  directly  from  a  child  —  a  somewhat  over- 
drilled  and  over-virtuous  child,  such  as  it  was  the 
tendency  of  that  disciplinary  age  to  produce  —  we 
shall  readily  perceive  that,  with  its  hard  and  fast  dis- 
tribution of  rewards  and  punishments ;  its  resolute 
hold  upon  concrete  fact;  its  avoidance,  not  to  say 
detestation,  of  anything  approaching  the  abstract; 
it  is  precisely  what  such  a  Georgian  or  pre-Victorian 
child  might  —  nay,  certainly  would  —  have  written  for 
itself,  had  its  powers  of  composition  been  equal  to 
such  a  task. 

For  —  let  cynics  say  what  they  will  to  the  contrary  — 
children  unquestionably  do  prefer  that  the  rewards  and 
the  punishments  should  go  straight ;  that  the  nice  kind 
boy  should  have  his  cakes  and  his  pony ;  that  the  bad, 
cruel  boy  should  be  severely  bitten,  and  have  a  sound 
whipping  —  if  possible  administered  by  themselves 
as  Ehadamanthus.  They  even  enjoy,  perhaps  as  a 
variety,  the   sensation  of  being   now  and  then  good 


62  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

themselves.  Certainly  R.  L.  Stevenson  thought  so, 
and  there  could  hardly  be  a  better  judge  of  children. 
If  we  open  his  ChilcVs  Garden  of  Verses,  and  turn  to 
any  of  the  rhymes  which  are  put  into  the  mouths 
of  children,  we  shall  find  that  the  sentiments  therein 
expressed  are,  with  hardly  an  exception,  of  the  most 
irreproachably  virtuous  cast. 

At  all  events,  and  without  prejudging  the  case  as 
regards  children  in  general,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  the  Edge  worth  children  were  not  only  remarkably 
virtuous  themselves,  but  preferred  that  their  youthful 
heroes  and  heroines  should  be  virtuous  also.  "  I  do 
not  think  one  tear  per  month  is  shed  in  this  house," 
Mr.  Edgeworth  boasted  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Dr. 
Darwin.  How  far  so  desirable  a  state  of  things  was 
entirely  due  to  the  admirable  system  inaugurated  by 
himself,  or  how  far  kindly  Nature  had  her  share  in  it, 
we  cannot  now  know,  so  the  credit  had  better  be 
divided  between  them.  Turning  from  these  children 
of  fact,  long  since  grown  grey  and  vanished,  to  those 
more  enduring  children  of  fancy,  who  were  the  off- 
spring, not  of  himself,  but  of  his  daughter  Maria,  per- 
sonal experience  points  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  most 
infantile  of  them  all  that  has  retained  the  greatest 
vitality,  and  equally  so  whether  beloved  in  the  first 
instance,  or  the  reverse.  For  personally  —  and  in  all 
these  higher  altitudes  of  literature,  the  personal  attitude 
is  admittedly  the  only  one  —  I  will  confess  to  having 
throughout  my  own  youth  nourished  a  rooted  antipathy 
to  "Frank"!  From  the  moment  in  which  some 
kindly  voice  began  to  read  aloud  the  chronicle  of  his 
virtues,  and  while  the  page  upon  which  those  virtues 
were  inscribed  was  still  an  undecipherable  mystery. 


IV.]        ARRIVAL  IN  IRELAND  —  FIRST  BOOKS  63 

that    antipathy   began,   and    must,   I  imagine,   have 
increased  daily :  — 

"  Therewasalittleboywhosenamewas  Frank.  .  .  .  When 
his  father  or  mother  said  to  him,  '  Frank,  shut  the  door,'  he 
ran  directly  and  shut  the  door.  When  they  said  to  him, 
'  Franlv,  do  not  touch  that  knife,'  he  took  his  hands  away  from 
the  knife,  and  did  not  touch  it.  He  was  an  obedient  little 
boy." 

Even  such  recitations  of  his  merits  might,  I 
think,  have  been  endured,  had  it  not  been  for  his 
own  eternal  endorsement  of  them  :  —  "  Mamma,  /  am 
useful,  I  am  of  great  use."  "  Papa,  /  never  meddle 
with  candles  or  fire  when  you  or  mamma  are  not  in 
the  room."  "Mamma,  I  never  touch  anything  that 
does  not  belong  to  me."  "Mamma,  I  will  always  ask 
you  about  everjrthing,  because  you  can  tell  whether 
things  are  good  for  me  or  not." 

The  italics,  it  must  be  clearly  understood,  were  in 
the  voice,  and  will  not  be  found  upon  the  printed 
page,  but  the  effect  was  such  as  I  have  described. 
And  the  worst  of  the  matter  was  that,  not  alone 
obedience  —  never,  after  all,  a  particularly  popular 
virtue  —  but  even  kindliness  to  animals,  even  common 
honesty,  became  equally  unpopular  when  taken  under 
the  pragmatical  shelter  of  Frank  :  —  "  Mamma,  I  am 
going  to  behave  to  this  snail  as  I  should  wish  to  be 
behaved  to  myself  if  /  were  a  snail."  "  Mamma,  I 
was  very  honest,  was  I  not,  when  I  returned  his  nuts 
to  him  ?  "  "  Mamma,  I  Avill  always  be  honest  about 
everything  as  well  as  about  nuts."  There  were  moments 
when  it  seemed  hardly  possible  that  any  mother  of 
spirit  would  not  have  risen  up  and  slain  such  a  boy  ! 

On  the  other  hand,  Rosamund  was  always  a  much 


54  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

beloved  little  girl,  and  even  her  ghost — poor,  dim  lit- 
tle ghost !  —  is  beloved  still.  She  and  Frank  may  be 
called  the  hero  and  heroine  of  these  infant  tales, 
although,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  they  never 
actually  met  in  the  course  of  them.  In  Rosamund's 
case,  all  that  vehement  wrath  which  had  been  pre- 
viously aroused  by  Frank,  was  reserved  for  her 
unnatural  parents.  In  the  first  of  the  series,  we  learn 
how  poor  little  Rosamund  was  kept  for  a  whole  month 
by  her  mother  in  shoes  which  hurt  her  dreadfully, 
entirely  too  for  moral,  and  not  in  the  least  for  pecuniary 
reasons.  The  tale,  as  I  have  recently  ascertained,  is 
really  quite  a  brief  one,  but  in  those  days  that  I  have 
been  recalling,  it  seemed  as  if  the  woes  and  the  endur- 
ance of  Rosamund  had  been  drawn  out  to  the  length 
of  an  entire  Odyssey !  If  the  reader  will  kindly  study 
the  following  recital,  and  will  then  please  to  imagine 
it  being  listened  to,  or  spelled  out  for  itself,  by  a  very 
small  child,  he  will  rapidly  begin,  I  think,  to  realise  it 
from  the  proper  standpoint :  — 

"  Every  day  her  shoes  grew  worse  and  worse,  till  at  last 
she  could  neither  run,  dance,  jump,  nor  walk  in  them.  When- 
ever Rosamund  was  called  to  see  anything,  she  was  pulling 
her  shoes  up  at  the  heel,  and  was  sure  to  be  too  late.  When- 
ever her  mother  was  going  out  to  walk,  she  could  not  take 
Rosamund  with  her,  for  Rosamund  had  no  soles  to  her  shoes. 
At  length,  on  the  very  last  day  of  the  month,  it  happened  that 
her  father  proposed  to  take  her  with  her  brother  to  a  glass- 
house, which  she  had  long  wished  to  see.  She  was  very 
happy.  But  when  she  was  quite  ready,  had  her  hat  and 
gloves  on,  and  was  making  haste  downstairs  to  her  brother 
and  her  father,  who  were  waiting  at  the  hall-door  for  her,  the 
shoe  dropped  off.  She  put  it  on  again  in  a  hurry,  but  as  she 
was  going  across  the  hall,  her  father  turned  round.    '  Why,  are 


IV.]        ARRIVAL  IN  IRELAND  — FIRST  BOOKS  55 

you  walking  slipshod  ?  No  one  must  walk  slipshod  with  me ! 
Why,  Rosamund,'  said  he,  looking  at  her  shoes  with  disgust, 
'  I  thought  that  you  were  always  neat  ?  Go,  I  cannot  take 
you  with  me.'  " 

If  at  this  climax  of  her  sorrows  poor  Rosamund 
"retired  and  burst  into  tears,"  it  is  hardly  to  be 
wondered  at;  indeed,  but  for  pure  wrath,  I  suspect 
that  the  listener  would  have  done  so  likewise !  It 
was  the  abominable  and  the  perfectly  well  understood 
hypocrisy  of  the  whole  affair  which  aroused  such 
furious  resentment,  this  business  of  the  glass-house 
having  evidently  been  concocted  between  the  parents 
wholly  with  a  view  to  the  moral  benefit  to  be  derived. 
A  little  earlier  in  the  same  tale,  we  find  the  following 
conversation  between  Rosamund  and  her  mother. 
The  Purple  Jar  has  arrived  —  that  fatal  Jar,  which 
Rosamund  had  preferred  to  her  new  shoes,  and  this  is 
what  happens :  — 

"  The  moment  it  was  set  down  upon  the  table,  Rosamund 
ran  up,  with  an  exclamation  of  joy :  '  I  may  have  it  now, 
mamma? ' 

"  '  Yes,  my  dear,  it  is  yours.'  Rosamund  poured  the  flowers 
from  her  lap  upon  the  carpet,  and  seized  the  purple  flower- 
pot. 

"  '  Oh,  dear  mother  I '  cried  she,  as  soon  as  she  had  taken  off 
the  top,  but  there's  something  dark  in  it ;  it  smells  very 
disagreeably;  what  is  it?    I  didn't  want  this  black  stuff.' 

"  '  Nor  I  neither,  my  dear.' 

"  '  But  what  shall  I  do  with  it,  mamma  ? ' 

" '  That  I  cannot  tell.' 

"  '  But  it  will  be  of  no  use  to  me,  mamma  ? ' 

"  '  That  I  cannot  help.' 

'"But  I  must  pour  it  out,  and  fill  the  flower-pot  with 
water.' 

" '  That's  as  you  please,  my  dear.' 


66  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

"  *  Will  you  lend  me  a  bowl  to  pour  it  into,  mamma?  ' 
" '  That  was  more  than  I  promised  you,  my  dear ;  but  I  will 
lend  you  a  bowl.* " 

The  climax  is  soon  reached,  and  poor  Eosamund's 
despair  and  disappointment  are  known  to  us  all !  In 
vain  she  now  implores  for  a  reversal  of  her  rash  choice, 
and  for  a  bestowal  upon  her  of  the  uninteresting  but 
useful  shoes.  The  maternal  Minos  is  not  to  be  ap- 
peased, and  the  appointed  month  of  penance  has  duly 
to  be  endured :  — 

" '  No,  Rosamund,  you  must  abide  by  your  own  choice ; 
and  now  the  best  thing  is,  to  bear  your  disappointment  with 
good  humour.' 

" '  I  will  bear  it  as  well  as  I  can,'  said  Rosamund,  wiping 
her  eyes ;  and  she  began  slowly  and  sorrowfully  to  fill  the 
vase  with  flowers." 

Breathes  there  a  child  with  soul  so  dead,  that  would 
not  to  itself  have  said  —  "I  hate,  I  simply  detest  that 
mother  of  Eosamund ! "  That  this  was  not  the  im- 
pression intended  to  be  conveyed  is,  however,  per- 
fectly certain,  which  only  shows  how  careful  even  the 
cleverest  of  us  ought  to  be,  especially  if  we  cherish  a 
hope  of  our  little  inventions  reaching  —  as  in  this  case 
—  to  a  second,  nay,  even  to  a  third  and  a  fourth  genera- 
tion. In  those  remote  days  which  I  have  been  trying 
to  recall,  a  good  deal  of  the  wrath  evoked  by  the  virtues 
of  Frank,  and  by  the  woes  of  Eosamund,  rebounded, 
I  feel  quite  certain,  upon  the  head  of  their  creator. 
In  more  recent  years  it  has  been  realised  that, 
whereas  Maria  Edgew^orth  herself  served  as  the  model 
of  the  delinquent  Eosamund,  in  the  glorified  Frank 
"we  are   privileged  to  behold  no  less  an  incarnation 


IV.]        AREIVAL  IN  IRELAND  — FIRST  BOOKS  67 

than  the  youthful  presentment  of  her  illustrious  papa 
—  a  view  -which  certainly  causes  the  matter  to  assume 
a  somewhat  different  aspect. 

Rosamund  and  Frank  both  reappear  in  the  later 
stories,  Frank  always  as  the  same  embodiment  of 
conscious  virtue,  Rosamund  invariably  in  the  same 
attitude  of  a  rash  but  affectionate  penitent.  In  the 
latest  of  the  collected  editions  of  our  author's  works, 
Tlie  Parent'' s  Assistant,  like  the  rest  of  the  series,  has 
had  the  great  advantage  of  being  edited  by  Mrs. 
Richmond  Ritchie,  whose  prefaces  abound  in  the 
happiest  touches.  "Fairies,"  she  observes,  in  one 
place,  "are  not  much  in  Miss  Edgeworth's  line,  but 
philanthropic  manufacturers,  liberal  noblemen,  and 
benevolent  ladies  in  travelling  carriages,  do  as  well, 
and  appear  at  the  nick  of  time,  to  distribute  rewards, 
or  to  point  a  moral."  Too  true !  neither  the  Edgeworth 
children  themselves,  in  flesh  and  blood,  nor  their  re- 
presentatives in  the  stories,  were  ever  allowed  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  fairies,  and  one  only  wonders 
■how,  under  the  circumstances,  they  contrived  to  hold 
up  their  heads,  and  to  look  as  lively  as  they  did. 
Lively,  indeed,  all  Miss  Edgeworth's  heroes  and 
heroines  are,  or  they  never  would  have  retained  their 
hold  upon  at  least  two  generations  of  critical  readers. 
Of  the  fairly  long  list  of  these  heroes  and  heroines  of 
hers,  none  are  sprightlier  or  more  alive  than  the  very 
youngest  of  them.  The  little  group  of  children  in 
The  Orplians  ;  Jim  and  his  Lightfoot;  Lazy  Laivrence  ; 
Maurice  and  Arthur,  in  Forgive  and  Forget  ;  the  other 
two  boys  in  Waste  not,  Want  not  —  all  these  look  up 
in  our  faces  with  an  aspect  of  credibility  which  I  fail 
myself  always  to  feel  with  the  same  certainty  as  regards 


58  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap.  iv. 

the  older  personages — the  Irish  ones  always  excepted. 
As  for  Simj)le  Susan,  that  small  damsel  sits  —  must, 
while  literature  lasts,  continue  to  sit — upon  the  pedes- 
tal raised  for  her  by  the  great  and  good  Sir  Walter. 
"When  the  boy  brings  back  the  lamb  to  the  little 
girl,"  Sir  Walter  Scott  wrote  to  a  correspondent, 
"  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  put  down  the  book 
and  cry."  And  after  such  a  tribute  every  later  and 
lower  panegyric  sinks  necessarily  to  the  level  of  mere 
surplusage ! 


CHAPTER  V 

DISTURBED    DAYS 

The  even  flow  of  life  at  Edgeworthstown  —  a  flow 
which  to  impatient  readers  of  less  placid  days  seems 
at  times  exasperatingly  even  —  was  destined  to  be 
somewhat  seriously  troubled  during  the  last  ten  years 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  by  two  quite  discon- 
nected sources  of  disturbance.  One  of  these  was 
external,  namely  "the  State  of  the  Country,"  the 
other  was  internal,  and  resolved  itself  mainly  into 
a  question  of  health.  A  grievous  heritage  of  con- 
sumption had  come  into  the  family  from  the  Sneyd 
alliances,  all  the  children  of  the  two  wives  bearing  that 
name  having  been  at  one  time  or  other  threatened 
or  struck  down  with  the  scourge.  The  first  to  be 
so  struck  down  was  a  girl  named  Honora,  daughter 
of  the  original  Honora,  and  described  as  being  even 
more  beautiful  than  her  mother.  Strangers  on  coming 
up  to  speak  to  some  member  of  the  family  were  so 
struck  by  her  beauty  as  to  be  unable,  we  are  assured, 
to  remember  what  they  were  about  to  say.  It  is 
likely  enough,  since  it  was  a  beauty,  no  doubt,  of 
that  dazzling  type  which  the  scourge,  not  only  en- 
courages, but  sometimes  seems  almost  to  create.  She 
died  at  all  events  while  still  under  sixteen  years  of 
age,  to  the  immense  grief  of  her  relations,  especially 

59 


60  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

of  her  eldest  sister.  Auotlier  child,  Lovell,  the  only- 
son  of  the  second  marriage,  was  threatened  with  the 
same  fate,  and  under  the  panic  of  the  visitation  it  was 
decided  in  the  year  1791  to  break  up  house  for  a  while 
at  Edgeworthstown,  and  to  carry  the  boy  to  Clifton  — 
a  town  in  those  days  boasting  of  a  reputation  as  a 
health  resort,  which  it  seems  in  our  own  to  have 
quite  lost. 

The  task  of  conveying  the  younger  members  of  the 
flock  was  left  to  their  sister  Maria,  the  father  and 
mother  having  hurried  off  at  once  with  the  invalid. 
It  was  no  light  undertaking,  as  will  readily  be  per- 
ceived when  we  consider  the  size  of  that  enormous 
family  party,  the  indifferent  travelling  arrangements 
attainable,  and  the  distance,  little  now,  but  how 
formidable  then ! 

Several  as  yet  unpublished  letters  of  Miss  Edgeworth 
belong  to  this  period,  and  will  tell  their  own  tale 
infinitely  better  than  it  can  be  told  by  any  other 
means.  One  little  incident  of  the  road  may  be 
mentioned  first,  since  it  occurs,  not  in  her  letters,  but 
in  Mrs.  Edgeworth's  memoir.  Upon  the  arrival  of 
the  whole  party  at  some  inn  in  which  they  were 
to  spend  the  night,  we  are  told  that  the  hostess  of 
it,  seeing  child  after  child  descend  from  the  coach, 
and  parcel  after  parcel  handed  out  in  an  apparently 
endless  succession,  at  last  exclaimed  indignantly : 
"  Haven't  yez  brought  the  kitchen  grates  with  you 
too  ?  " 

Characteristically  enough,  this  first  letter  of  Maria 
Edgeworth  begins  with  a  loan,  or  a  gift,  which  is  to 
be  accepted  by  the  recipient  entirely  as  a  kindness 
to  the  donor  herself.     It  is  addressed  to  her  cousin, 


v.]  DISTURBED  DAYS  61 

Sophy  Ruxton,  daughter  of  the  Mrs.  Ruxton  who  was 
Maria's  best-beloved  aunt,  as  well  as  faithful,  lifelong 
correspondent :  — 

"  My  dear  Sophy,  —  I  must,  and  I  will,  find  time  to 
write  one  line  to  you.  ...  I  hope  Tomboy  will  deliver 
this  with  his  own  hand.  How  very  good  you  are  to 
take  charge  of  him.  He  has  orders  to  lay,  if  he  can 
lift  it,  a  clumsy  writing-desk  of  sister  Maria's  at  your 
ladyship's  feet.  Don't  let  your  pride  prick  up  its  ears ; 
I  am  not  going  to  give  it  to  you,  I  am  only  going  to 
beseech  you  to  take  care  of  it  in  my  absence,  and  if 
you  will,  dear  Sophy,  it  will  be  very  agreeable  to  me 
to  think  it  may  sometimes  bring  me  to  your  thoughts. 
.  .  .  Wherever  I  am,  I  shall  always  feel  as  I  do  now, 
that  a  very  great  proportion  of  the  happiness  of  my 
life  must  depend  upon  the  approbation  and  affection 
of  the  friends  I  love.  I  send  the  story  I  began  for 
Margaret,  merely  to  prove  to  you  that  I  had  actually 
begun.  It  is  very  badly  done,  and  for  my  own  credit 
I  would  not  send  it,  only  on  the  faith  that  you  will 
not  show  it  to  anybody,  and  return  it  by  Molly." 

The  next  extract  is  also  from  a  letter  written  a  few 
months  later,  to  the  same  cousin  Sophy  :  — 

"  Clifton,  March  9,  1792. 
"  Mr.  Seymour,  Mrs.  Danby's  father,  is  coming  to 
live  very  near  us  in  Prince's  Place  ;  I  saw  him  for  a 
moment,  at  Miss  Place's.  Before  I  have  done  with 
Miss  Place,  I  must  tell  you  an  anecdote  she  told  us. 
A  very  cross,  ignorant  old  lady  lodges  with  a  very 
literary  lady.  And  one  day  the  literary  lady  had  been 
conversing  with  some  of  her  companions  about  Tasso, 


62  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

and  forgot  the  old  lady  was  in  the  room  ;  the  old  lady- 
fidgeted,  hemmed,  stirred  the  fire,  sat  down,  got  up, 
and  giving  as  much  expression  as  she  could  to  her  hips 
as  she  crossed  the  room,  fairly  flounced  out.  Presently 
a  visitor  after  her  own  heart  knocked  at  the  door ;  she 
reappeared :  '  Oh  dear,  ma'am  ! '  cried  she,  '  I  am  so 
glad  you  've  come,  for  here 's  Mrs.  Q.  and  Mrs.  Z.  have 
been  talking  till  I  am  quite  sick  of  Tarso,  and  all  those 
leather-hacked  gentlemen  ! '  " 

After  this  letter  there  comes  a  sudden  break.  The 
stay  of  the  family  at  Clifton  was  nearing  an  end, 
and  the  next  set  of  letters  is  dated  from  Edge- 
worthstown.  Events  in  Ireland  were  fast  becoming 
threatening.  One  or  two  scares  about  French  descents 
had  roused  the  authorities  into  acts  of  repression, 
the  result  of  which  had  been  to  add  fuel  to  the 
flames.  To  all  who  knew  that  country  it  was  clear 
that  an  outbreak  was  impending,  and  equally  clear 
that  county  Longford  —  and  consequently  Edgeworths- 
town  —  were  likely  to  be  in  the  thick  of  it.  To 
many  men  this  would  have  seemed  to  be  an  excellent 
reason,  if  not  for  staying  away  himself,  at  least  for 
not  bringing  home  with  him  to  Ireland  a  delicate 
wife  and  a  crowd  of  tiny  children  !  Mr.  Edgeworth, 
however,  thought  otherwise.  To  be  at  Edgeworths- 
town  was,  he  considered,  under  the  circumstances,  his 
duty,  and  where  he  was  there  his  wife  and  all  his 
family  had  to  be  also.  Home  to  Edgeworthstown 
accordingly  the  entire  party  trooped.  Of  the  return 
journey  we  are  not  given  any  details,  but,  since  it  was 
under  the  control  of  the  dignified  head  of  the  house, 
it  is  probable  that  all  went  smoothly.    No  sooner  were 


v.]  DISTURBED   DAYS  63 

they  settled  down  again  at  home  than  Maria's  active 
pen  began  to  get  to  work.  The  stories  were  now 
accumulating  fast,  and  would  shortly  form  a  volume. 
Practical  Education  was  also  being  pushed  forward  by 
Mr.  Edgeworth,  in  the  intervals  of  his  duties  not  only 
as  a  magistrate  but  also  as  holding  some  command 
in  a  troop  of  local  yeomanry.  What  is  to  us  to-day 
of  considerably  greater  interest,  Maria  began  at  once 
to  collect  the  materials  which  grew  into  that  wonder- 
ful little  page  of  social  history,  torn  direct  from  life, 
that  was  destined  to  appear  anonymously  as  Castle 
Rackrent. 

These  years  of  revolution  and  disturbance  seem  to 
have  had  an  undoubtedly  stimulating  effect  upon  her 
mental  development.  Not  only  was  the  best  of  all 
her  books  projected  then,  but  even  the  letters  written 
after  this  date  are  distinctly  stronger  and  better  than 
the  earlier  ones.  The  following,  hitherto  unpublished, 
description  of  an  encounter  which  took  place  before 
their  own  hall-door  is  too  good  to  omit,  or  even  to 
curtail.  The  whole  scene  —  the  perplexity  of  the 
English  footman  ;  the  importance  of  little  Mackin,  the 
newly-enlisted  militiaman,  in  whom  "none  could  dare 
to  see  the  car-driver  through  the  regimentals  "  ;  the 
ladies  crowding  the  bow-window  to  look  on ;  the 
dignified  magistrate,  helplessly  endeavouring  to  en- 
force the  law ;  the  wild  defiance,  and  final  escape  of 
the  culprit  —  it  might  all  have  come  bodily  out  of  one 
of  her  Irish  novels. 

"  Edgeworthstown,  Sept.  20,  1794. 
"My  dearest  Aunt  Kuxton,  —  Do  you  remember 
an  old  ■  shoemaker  who  used  to  Avear  a  broad  black 


64  MARIA   EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

collar  round  his  neck,  and  who  always  looked  as  if  he 
was  going  to  be  hanged  ?  This  man,  known  by  the 
name  of  '  Old  Moor,'  has  a  son  called  by  the  name  of 
'  Young  Moor.'  He  is  not,  however,  the  captain  of  a 
band  of  robbers,  nor  yet  a  hero  ;  but  he  has  made  him- 
self a  sergeant,  and  in  this  character,  with  all  his  red, 
blue,  green,  and  yellow  M?iblusliing  military  honours, 
he  made  his  appearance  in  a  conspicuous  seat  at  church 
on  Sunday,  to  the  admiration  and  amusement  of  a 
respectable  and  devout  congregation.  This  morning 
my  father  came  down  to  breakfast  early,  with  the 
intention  of  being  at  Longford  to  attend  a  secret 
Committee,  and  was  drinking  his  chocolate,  and  talking 
to  Lovell  about  the  composition  of  certain  white  lights, 
when  Samuel  came  in  with  — '  Sir,  here  are  some 
soldiers,  a  whole  parcel  on  'em,  Sir,  who  have  had  a 
brawl,  if  you  'd  please  to  see  'em.  Sir.  I  believe  they 
have  enlisted  my  lord's  painter.' 

" '  ]\[y  lord's  painter  ! '  said  my  father ;  '  What  is  his 
name  ?  ' 

"  '  My  lord's  painter,  Sir,  —  he  as  painted  my  Lord 
Granard's  house,  he  is  at  the  door.' 

"  Upon  inquiry  my  father  found  that  '  my  lord's 
painter '  was  a  poor  old  grey-headed  man,  who  had  been 
made  drunk  by  one  Mott  Farrell,  a  man  of  very  bad 
character  in  this  town,  who  had  first  forced  a  guinea 
into  his  pocket,  and  then  robbed  him  of  it,  and  then 
insisted  upon  his  being  duly  enlisted  in  his  Majesty's 
service.  The  soldier  who  presented  the  poor  painter, 
with  his  bundle  of  brushes  still  tied  up  in  a  handker- 
chief, was  little  Mackin,  who  not  many  weeks  ago  was 
a  car-driver  in  his  honour's  service.  But  he  drew  on 
and  off  his  gloves  with  so  fine  an  air  ;  called  my  father 


v.]  DISTURBED   DAYS  65 

*  my  dear,'  and  talked  so  confidently  of  his  knowing 
'too  much  of  military  service,'  etc.,  that  none  could 
dare  to  see  the  car-driver  through  the  regimentals. 
In  spite,  however,  of  little  Mackin  the  quondam  car- 
driver's  knowledge  of  military  affairs,  my  father  could 
not  be  persuaded  that  the  painter  was  duly  enlisted, 
and  he  discharged  him. 

"A  few  minutes  after,  when  we  thought  that  the 
painter  and  his  brushes  were  at  liberty,  Samuel  re- 
entered with  poached  eyes.  '  Sir,  they  have  seized  my 
lord's  painter  again,  and  are  forcing  him  into  a  house 
in  the  town  ! '  M}^  father  waxed  wrath  at  this  piece 
of  tyranny,  and  went  to  enforce  justice.  Now  the 
person  who  had  seized  the  painter  after  his  discharge 
was  Sergeant  Harry  Moor.  He  made  his  appearance 
with  a  constable,  —  half  yellow  wig,  half  black  hair, 
—  Charlie  Monaghan,  no  less,  the  husband  of  the 
celebrated  washerwoman.  They  stood  opposite  the 
library  window;  my  father,  at  the  door  of  the  new 
hall,  was  reading  to  the  painter  his  examinations,  the 
ladies  were  crowding  round  the  bow-window,  when  lo ! 
they  saw  Young  Moor  draw  and  'brandish  high  th' 
Hibernian  sword ! '  Charlie  Monaghan,  with  a  stick 
in  his  hand,  beat,  or  seemed  to  beat,  at  his  coat,  but 
Charlie  Monaghan  was  not  a  hero,  and  Young  Moor 
escaped  from  the  arm  of  the  law,  and  ran  off  to  fight 
another  day.  All  this  passed  like  a  flash  of  lightning : 
there  was  no  thunder !  My  father  did  not  see  the 
flash  of  the  sword,  and  when  he  looked  up,  it  was 
over. 

"  A  warrant  was  immediately  made  out  to  conduct 
the  hero  to  gaol  for  a  contempt  of  his  Majesty's 
justices.     The  constable,  and  John  Langan,  and  Mr. 


66  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

Lovell  Edgeworth  went  to  seize  Harry  at  his  castle, 
whither  he  had  taken  refuge.  They  were  to  go  to  the 
back  entrance  of  the  said  castle.  My  father  got  into 
his  chaise,  which  was  waiting  for  him  to  go  to  Long- 
ford, and  meant  to  do  himself  the  honour  of  receiving 
Sergeant  Moor  as  he  went  through  the  town.  In  the 
middle  of  the  street  stood  the  undaunted  hero.  My 
father,  confident  that  his  emissaries  were  at  the  back 
premises,  thought  he  had  the  gentleman  safe ;  but  the 
moment  he  heard  my  father  give  orders  to  a  soldier  to 
seize  him,  he  darted  into  his  house.  Now,  by  some 
mistake,  Monaghan  was  not  ready  at  the  back  door, 
and  Moor  escaped.  My  father,  however,  knowing 
that  a  sergeant  was  a  man  of  too  much  consequence 
to  be  entirely  lost,  determined  to  send  kind  inquiries 
after  him  to  his  commanding  officer,  and  so  pursued 
his  way  to  Longford,  with  Tumor  on  Crimes  and 
Punishments  in  the  chaise  with  him." 

Tumor  on  Crimes  and  Punishments  must  have  been  a 
work  in  considerable  demand,  one  conceives,  just  then 
in  Ireland !  Hardly  a  Aveek  passed  without  somewhat 
similar  excursions  and  alarms,  and,  as  may  be  seen 
from  the  foregoing  account,  the  newly  enlisted  militia 
were  quite  as  likely  to  prove,  breakers  of  the  law  as 
any  of  the  more  ofiicially  recognised  "  rebels,"  whom 
it  was  supposed  to  be  their  business  to  control. 
Another  fragment  of  a  letter  is  extant,  which  appar- 
ently told  of  the  capture  of  this  hero,  ''  Young 
Moor."  Unfortunately  it  is  ouly  a  fragment,  and  the 
end  of  that  particular  tale  will  therefore  never  now 
be  known :  — 

"About  half  past  five  o'clock  my  father  returned, 


v.]  DISTURBED  DAYS  67 

looking  extremely  tired,  and,  to  our  surprise,  quite 
hoarse.  'After  I  have  eaten  something,  for  I  have 
eaten  nothing  since  morning,'  said  he,  '  I  will  tell  you 
my  adventures.'  Dinner  was  soon  over,  and  we  drew 
round  the  sofa  to  hear.  '  I  was  reading  in  the  chaise 
when  the  stage  coach  passed  me  full  drive,  its  driver 
drunk  as  usual.  I  was  withdrawing  my  eyes  from 
this  ugly  spectacle,  when  I  saw  that  one  of  the  wheels 
of  the  coach  was  just  coming  off.  I  called  to  the 
coachman,  but  he  did  not  heed.  As  we  came  up,  the 
coachman  whipped  his  horses  into  a  gallop,  and  I 
called  and  called,  till  I  was  so  hoarse  I  could  call  no 
more,  —  in  vain,  till  a  jolt  came,  and  crash  .  .  .'  " 

And  with  the  like  crash  our  tale  comes  to  an  end,  for 
the  rest  of  this  letter  is  lost,  and  we  know  no  further. 
We  leave  off,  however,  with  a  lively  impression  of 
what  was  likely  to  befall  passengers  in  a  closed  coach 
with  a  drunken  driver.  The  end  of  the  adventure 
seems  to  have  been  that  the  coach  was  overturned,  and 
that  "  Young  Moor,"  who  was  upon  the  top  of  it,  was 
then  and  there  duly  captured. 


CHAPTER  VI 


NINETY-EIGHT 


The  gloom,  which  was  at  this  date  fast  settling 
down  over  Ireland  in  general,  was  accentuated  at 
Edgeworthstown  by  fresh  trouble.  Mrs.  Edgeworth 
was  visibly  failing.  After  her  return  from  Clifton  she 
began  to  be  ill,  and  it  soon  became  clear  that  her  life 
could  not  be  much  further  prolonged.  In  a  letter 
written  about  this  date,  her  step-daughter,  after 
quoting  a  gay  little  quatrain  of  hers  about  some 
dyes  that  the  children  were  concocting,  adds  —  "  But 
though  my  mother  makes  epigrams,  she  is  far  from 
well."  So  kaleidoscopic  is  the  succession  of  these 
''mothers"  of  Miss  Edgeworth,  that  emotion  tends  to 
dry  up  under  it,  and  even  the  most  patient  of  biogra- 
phers wearies  a  little  before  the  duty  of  chronicling 
their  various  arrivals  and  exits.  It  was  in  November 
1797  that  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Edgeworth  died,  and,  while 
the  following  year  was  still  young,  we  already  per- 
ceive preludings  pointing  to  the  arrival  of  another  —  it 
is  a  relief  to  be  able  to  assert  the  last  wife  positively 
of  Mr.  Edgeworth!  An  illustrated  edition  of  Tlie 
Parents  Assistant  was  being  projected  by  the  publish- 
ers, and  Miss  Beaufort  (the  daughter  of  a  rector  in 
a  neighbouring  county)  had  requested  to  be  allowed 
to  undertake  the  illustrations.     The  matter  entailed 

68 


CHAP,  ri.]  NINETY-EIGHT  69 

interviews  with  Mr.  Edge  worth,  and  the  interviews 
led  to  —  their  inevitable  result !  For  once  the  devoted 
Maria  seems  to  have  shown  some  little  dismay  over 
these  precipitate  proceedings.  She  held  back,  and 
could  not  immediately  be  cordial.  Soon,  however, 
we  find  her  writing  to  Miss  Beaufort,  and  in  a  tone, 
moreover,  the  dutifulness  of  which  would  to  most  of 
us  have  appeared  to  be  rather  beyond  what  the 
occasion  required. 

As  had  by  this  time  become  his  habit,  Mr.  Edge- 
worth  not  only  married  in  a  somewhat  singular 
fashion,  but  he  selected  a  particularly  singular  time 
and  place  in  which  to  get  married.  The  country  was 
now  rocking  in  the  very  throes  of  rebellion.  The 
marriage  took  place  in  Dublin,  and  the  bride's  expe- 
riences upon  her  progress  from  there  to  Edgeworths- 
town  were  more  exciting  evidently  than  pleasant. 
Few  people,  she  tells  us,  were  to  be  seen  along  the 
roads,  a  fact  hardly  to  be  wondered  at,  considering 
that  at  an  inn  called  "The  Nineteen  Mile  House," 
where  they  were  delayed  for  a  while,  a  woman,  whom 
they  found  alone  in  the  kitchen,  came  up  to  them 
and  whispered,  "The  boys  (the  rebels)  are  hid  in 
the  potato  furrows  beyond."  Mr.  Edgeworth,  we 
hear,  was  rather  startled  at  this  intelligence,  but 
took  no  notice.  "  A  little  further  on,"  Mrs.  Edge- 
worth  continues,  "  I  saw  something  very  odd  on 
the  side  of  the  road  before  us."  "What  is  that?" 
"  Look  to  the  othei-  side.  DonH  look  at  it !  "  cried 
Mr.  Edgeworth.  After  they  had  passed,  he  told  her 
that  it  was  a  car  turned  up,  between  the  shafts  of 
which  a  man  was  hung,  murdered  by  the  rebels. 

In  spite  of  these  and  similarly  pleasing  incidents, 


70  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

they  arrived  safe  and  sound  at  Edgeworthstown,  where 
they  found  the  family  perfectly  calm  as  regards  their 
safety,  although  in  a  flutter  of  excitement  over  the 
arrival  of  the  hitherto  almost  unknown  stepmother. 

Nothing,  perhaps,  strikes  outsiders  more  forcibly 
than  the  light-hearted  fashion  in  which  the  peril  of 
situations  such  as  these  is  apt  to  be  treated  by  the 
people  most  concerned,  a  fact  which  those  who  have 
passed  through  similar,  if  milder,  ordeals  in  later  years 
in  Ireland,  will  be  able  to  bear  out  from  their  own  ex- 
perience. Maria  Edgeworth's  letters,  written  at  this 
date,  positively  brim  over  with  jests,  both  as  regards 
the  situation  at  large,  and  her  own  share  in  it.  —  "  All 
that  I  crave  for  my  own  part,"  she  exclaims  in  one  of 
them,  "  is  that  if  I  am  to  have  my  throat  cut,  it  may 
not  be  by  a  man  with  his  face  blackened  with  charcoal ! 
I  shall  look  at  every  person  that  comes  here  very 
closely  to  see  if  there  be  any  marks  of  charcoal  upon 
their  visages.  Old  wrinkled  offenders  I  should  sup- 
pose would  never  be  able  to  wash  out  their  stains ; 
but  in  others  a  very  clean  face  will,  in  my  mind,  be  a 
strong  symptom  of  guilt  —  clean  hands  proof  positive, 
and  clean  nails  ought  to  hang  a  man." 

In  another  letter,  written  to  her  cousin  Soj)hy  about 
a  month  after  her  father's  marriage,  the  following 
picture  of  absolute  domestic  tranquillity  occurs :  — 
"  So  little  change  has  been  made  in  the  way  of  living, 
that  you  would  feel  as  if  you  were  going  on  with  your 
usual  occupations  and  conversation  amongst  us.  We 
laugh  and  talk,  and  enjoy  the  good  of  every  day, 
which  is  more  than  sufficient.  How  long  this  may 
last  we  cannot  tell.  I  am  going  on  in  the  old  way, 
writing  stories.      I  cannot  be  a  captain  of  dragoons, 


Ti.]  NINETY-EIGHT  71 

and  sitting  with  my  hands  before  me  "would  not  make 
any  of  us  one  degree  safer.  ...  I  have  finished 
a  volume  of  wee-wee  stories,  about  the  size  of  the 
Purple  Jar,  all  about  Rosamund.  Simxde  Susan  went 
to  Foxhall  a  few  days  ago  for  Lady  Ann  to  carry 
to  England.  My  father  has  made  our  little  rooms  so 
nice  for  us ;  they  are  all  fresh  painted  and  papered. 
Oh,  rebels  !  oh,  French  !  spare  them  !  We  have  never 
injured  you,  and  all  we  wish  is  to  see  everybody  as 
happy  as  ourselves." 

The  word  "  French  "  in  this  letter  introduces  us  to 
what  was  by  far  the  most  exciting  public  event  with 
which  Maria  Edgeworth  was  ever  destined  to  be  con- 
nected. Not  many  historic  incidents  are  less  tempting 
to  dwell  upon  as  a  whole  than  is  the  Irish  Rebellion  of 
1798.  It  had  been  so  long  foreseen,  and  so  completely 
had  the  commonest  precautions  to  avert  it  been 
neglected,  as  to  give  colour  to  the  suspicion  that  it 
had  been  actually  desired  by  those  in  authority  at  the 
time  in  Ireland.  When,  moreover,  the  long  expected 
happened,  and  the  rising  broke  out,  it  is  difficult  to 
say  upon  which  side  the  weight  of  condemnation  for 
sheer  brutality,  or  wanton  cruelty,  deserves  to  press 
most  heavily.  From  its  first  beginnings  —  from  the 
picketings  and  the  half  hangings  in  the  north ;  from  the 
pitch-cappings  and  floggings  in  the  Ridinghouse  of 
Beresford ;  afterwards  through  the  whole  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  rebels  in  Wicklow,  Wexford,  and 
Kildare  —  the  hideous  business  of  the  burning  of  the 
barracks  at  Prosperous,  the  daily  massacres  of  prisoners 
on  Vinegar  Hill,  the  horrors  of  the  barn  of  Scullabog, 
and  of  the  bridge  of  Wexford,  — these  followed  in  their 
turn  by  a  series  of  executions,  one  at  least  admittedly 


72  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

unjust,  several  dictated  by  personal  malice  or  the 
merest  caprices  of  panic  —  the  whole  scene  positively 
reeks  with  horror,  a  horror  which  hardly  a  gleam  of 
humanity  arises  to  temper.  One  episode  indeed  to 
some  extent  redeems  the  distasteful  story.  Unfor- 
tunately the  heroes  of  that  episode  were  neither  Irish 
heroes,  nor  yet  English  ones.  Few  historical  occur- 
rences are  more  striking,  and  at  the  same  time  less 
familiar  to  even  fairly  well  read  students  of  history, 
than  is  this  descent  upon  Ireland  in  the  year  1798  of 
a  mere  handful  of  French  soldiery,  led  by  a  group  of 
officers  of  that  indomitable  type  which  it  is  the  pride 
and  glory  of  the  French  Eevolution  to  have  brought 
to  the  front. 

A  more  visibly  hopeless  attempt  than  this  probably 
never  was  imagined,  yet  rarely  has  any  expedition 
so  ludicrously  ill  provided  gone  nearer  to  success 
than  it  did.  The  entire  incident  is  so  unique  as  to  be 
worth  a  moment's  dwelling  on,  the  more  so  since  it 
has  a  direct  connection  with  the  subject  of  this  little 
book,  it  having  been  Maria  Edgeworth's  singular 
fortune  —  mounted  upon  her  faithful  ''  Dapple,"  that 
remarkable  war-horse  !  —  to  have  assisted  at  the  last 
scene  of  this  ill-starred,  but  most  gallant  of  adventures. 

Before  glancing  for  a  moment  at  the  larger  incidents 
of  the  time,  it  will  be  better  first  to  follow  the  adven- 
tures of  the  Edgeworth  family,  as  we  find  them  given 
in  their  own  letters.  Those  letters  are  so  graphic 
that,  although  not  new,  they  ought  not,  I  think,  to  be 
entirely  omitted.  The  first  part  of  the  tale  is  told 
by  Maria,  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Euxton,  a  letter  sent 
off  evidently  in  hot  haste,  to  relieve  the  latter's  mind. 
It   is   dated   from    the   inn   at   Longford,  where   the 


VI.]  NINETY-EIGHT  73 

family  had  temporarily  taken  refuge,  after  clinging 
to  their  home  to  the  last  moment  —  in  fact  until  the 
rebels  were  reported  to  be  in  sight. 

"  Sept.  5,  '98. 

"  My  dearest  Aunt,  —  We  are  all  safe  and  well,  and  have 
had  two  most  fortunate  escapes  from  rebels,  and  from  the 
explosion  of  an  ammunition  cart.  Yesterday  w^e  heard,  about 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  that  a  large  body  of  rebels,  armed 
with  pikes,  were  within  a  few  miles  of  Edgeworthstown.  My 
father's  yeomanry  were  at  this  moment  gone  to  Longford  for 
their  arms,  which  Government  had  delayed  sending.  We 
were  ordered  to  decamp,  each  with  a  small  bundle  ;  the  two 
chaises  full,  and  my  mother  and  Aunt  Charlotte  on  horse- 
back. We  were  all  ready  to  move,  when  the  report  was  con- 
tradicted ;  only  twenty  or  thirty  men,  it  was  now  said,  were 
in  arms,  and  my  father  hoped  we  might  still  hold  fast  to  our 
dear  home. 

"  Two  officers  and  six  dragoons  happened  at  this  moment  to 
be  on  their  way  through  Edgeworthstown,  escorting  an  ammu- 
nition cart  from  Mullingar  to  Longford :  they  promised  to 
take  us  under  their  protection,  and  the  officer  came  up  to  the 
door  to  say  he  was  ready.  My  father  most  fortunately 
detained  us ;  they  set  out  without  us.  Half  an  hour  after- 
wards, as  we  were  quietly  sitting  in  the  portico,  we  hear-d  —  as 
we  thought  close  to  us  —  the  report  of  a  pistol,  or  a  clap  of 
thunder,  which  shook  the  house.  The  officer  soon  afterwards 
returned,  almost  speechless ;  he  could  hardly  explain  what 
had  happened.  The  ammunition  cart,  containing  nearly  three 
barrels  of  gunpowder,  packed  in  tin  cases,  took  fire  and  burst, 
half  way  on  the  road  to  Longford.  The  man  who  drove  the 
cart  was  blown  to  atoms  —  nothing  of  him  could  be  found; 
two  of  the  horses  were  killed,  others  were  blown  to  pieces, 
and  their  limbs  scattered  to  a  distance ;  the  head  and  body  of 
a  man  were  found  a  hundred  and  twenty  yards  from  the  spot. 
Mr.  Murray  was  the  name  of  the  officer  I  am  speaking  of  :  he 
had  with  him  a  Mr.  Rochfort  and  a  Mr.  Nugent.  Mr.  Roch- 
fort  was  thrown  from  his  horse,  one  side  of  his  face  was 


74  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

terribly  burnt,  and  stuck  over  with  gunpowder.  He  was 
carried  into  a  cabin,  and  they  thought  he  would  die,  but  they 
now  say  he  will  recover.  The  carriage  has  been  sent  to  take 
him  to  Longford.  I  have  not  time  or  room,  my  dear  aunt,  to 
dilate,  or  tell  you  half  I  have  to  say.  If  we  had  gone  with 
this  ammunition,  we  must  have  been  killed. 

"  An  hour  or  two  afterwards,  however,  we  were  obliged  to 
fly  from  Edgeworthstown.  The  rebel  pikemen,  three  hundred 
in  number,  actually  were  within  a  mile  of  the  town.  My 
mother.  Aunt  Charlotte,  and  I  rode;  we  passed  the  trunk  of 
a  dead  man,  bloody  limbs  of  horses,  and  two  dead  horses,  by 
the  help  of  men  who  pulled  on  our  steeds ;  all  safely  lodged 
now  in  Mrs.  Fallon's  inn." 


Mrs.  Edgeworth  here  takes  up  the  tale :  — 

"  Before  we  had  reached  the  place  where  the  cart  had  been 
blown  up,  Mr.  Edgeworth  suddenly  recollected  that  he  had 
left  on  the  table  in  his  study  a  list  of  the  yeomanry  corps, 
which  he  feared  might  endanger  the  poor  fellows  and  their 
families  if  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  rebels.  He  galloped 
back  for  it  —  it  was  at  the  hazard  of  his  life  —  but  the  rebels 
had  not  yet  appeared.  He  burned  the  paper,  and  rejoined  us 
safely. 

"  The  landlady  of  the  inn  at  Longford  did  all  she  could  to 
make  us  comfortable,  and  we  were  squeezed  into  the  already 
crowded  house.  Mrs.  Billamore,  our  excellent  housekeeper, 
we  had  left  behind  for  the  return  of  the  carriage,  which  had 
taken  Mr.  Rochfort  to  Longford.  But  it  was  detained,  and  she 
did  not  reach  us  till  the  next  morning,  when  we  learned  from 
her  that  the  rebels  had  not  come  up  to  the  house.  They  had 
halted  at  the  gate,  but  were  prevented  from  entering  by  a  man 
whom  she  did  not  remember  to  have  ever  seen ;  but  he  was 
grateful  to  her  for  having  lent  money  to  his  wife  when  she 
was  in  great  distress,  and  we  now,  at  our  utmost  need,  owed 
our  safety  and  that  of  the  house  to  his  gratitude.  We  were 
surprised  to  find  that  this  was  thought  by  some  to  be  a  sus- 
picious circumstance,  and  that  it  showed  Mr.  Edgeworth  to 
be  a  favourer  of  the  rebels !     An  express  arrived  at  night  to 


VI 


.]  NINETY-EIGHT  75 


say  the  French  were  close  to  Longford ;  Mr.  Edgeworth  under- 
took to  defend  the  gaol,  which  commanded  the  road  by  which 
the  enemy  must  pass,  where  they  could  be  detained  till  the 
King's  troops  came  up.  He  was  supplied  with  men  and 
ammunition,  and  watched  all  night ;  but  in  the  morning  news 
came  that  the  French  had  turned  in  a  different  direction,  and 
gone  to  Granard,  about  seven  miles  off." 

A  few  words  will  bring  the  larger  incidents  of 
the  time  up  to  this  point.  The  landing-place  which 
the  invaders  had  chosen  for  their  descent  was  Killala, 
a  small  town  upon  the  coast  of  Mayo,  at  that  time  the 
seat  of  a  Protestant  bishopric,  one  which  has  since 
then  been  merged  into  the  larger  diocese  of  Tuam. 
By  far  the  best  account  of  the  whole  affair  is  to  be 
found,  not  in  any  of  the  official  records  of  the  time, 
but  in  a  small  and  rather  scarce  book  —  Narrative  of 
ivhat  passed  at  Killala  during  the  French  Invasion,  by  an 
Eye-witness.  The  eye-witness  was  the  bishop  himself, 
Dr.  Stock,  a  prelate  whose  energy  and  courage  shone 
out  wdth  great  distinction  under  so  new  and  entirely 
unlooked  for  a  variation  of  the  ordinary  episcopal 
functions. 

The  whole  account  of  the  relations  between  him  and 
his  captors  reads  like  a  series  of  scenes  out  of  some 
brilliant  little  comedy,  or  tragi-comedy,  and  ought  to 
be  found  irresistible  upon  the  stage,  could  we  by  any 
means  conceive  of  anything  relating  to  Irish  history 
finding  favour  there.  So  little  expectation  of  invasion 
was  there  at  the  time  that,  when  three  strange  vessels 
were  observed  to  enter  the  bay,  two  of  the  bishop's 
sons  rowed  out  in  a  small  boat  to  ascertain  who 
the  strangers  were.  They  were  detained,  of  course, 
and   the  embarkation  was  accomplished  without   the 


76  MARIA   EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

slightest  difficulty.  The  few  yeomen  and  fencibles 
who  chanced  to  be  in  Killala  were  put  to  flight,  and 
before  evening  the  new  masters  of  the  place  had  estab- 
lished themselves,  without  molestation,  in  the  Castle 
of  Killala,  at  that  time  the  residence  of  Bishop  Stock, 
his  wife,  and  their  eleven  children. 

As  the  only  person  in  the  neighbourhood  who  was 
well  acquainted  with  French,  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  the 
bishop  to  have  to  act  as  interpreter  between  the 
foreign  invaders  and  their  native  adherents,  who  came 
swarming  into  Killala  from  all  the  country  round 
about.  Happily  for  the  defenceless  Protestants,  if 
wild  and  ignorant  to  the  last  degree,  the  latter 
showed  not  a  symptom  of  that  ferocity  which  has  left 
so  black  a  stain  upon  the  rising  in  Wexford  and  other 
parts  of  the  east  of  Ireland.  There  had  been  no  ill- 
usage  in  this  case  to  sting  the  people  to  fury,  and 
the  whole  account  of  their  behaviour  reads  less  like 
that  of  violent  and  determined  rebels,  than  like  the 
behaviour  of  a  crowd  of  astonished  and  excited 
children.  They  danced  with  delight  when  they  re- 
ceived their  new  uniforms,  as  well  as  the  rifles  which 
had  been  provided  for  them,  the  latter  of  which 
they  at  once  proceeded  to  fire  off  in  all  directions, 
and  at  everything — especially  the  crows.  On  one 
occasion  the  bishop  mentions  that  a  bullet  actually 
struck  the  hat  of  the  French  officer  in  command,  who 
happened  to  be  speaking  to  him  at  the  moment ! 

But  this  portion  of  the  story,  although  tempting  to 
dilate  upon,  must  be  left  half  told,  seeing  that  the 
only  part  of  the  invaders'  proceedings  with  which  this 
book  has  any  proper  connection  was  enacted  in  quite 
another  direction. 


VI.]  NINETY-EIGHT  77 

Upon  the  first  news  of  the  French  descent,  the  troops 
in  Connaught  had  been  ordered  by  Lord  Cornwallis 
to  concentrate  at  Castlebar.  The  officer  in  command 
was  General  Lake,  whose  reputation  for  inhumanity 
as  regards  the  early  part  of  the  rising  is  so  black 
that  it  is  difficult  to  resist  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  in 
the  fact  that  it  was  upon  him  that  the  subsequent 
disgrace  mainly  fell.  He  had  arrived  at  Castlebar  only 
the  very  evening  before  the  attack,  thereby  superseding 
Maj or-General  Hamilton,  who  had  previously  been  in 
command.  The  regular  road  from  Killala  to  Castlebar 
lies  through  the  village  of  Foxford,  and  a  force  of  some 
twelve  hundred  men  under  General  Taylor  had  been 
sent  to  hold  this  against  the  invaders.  At  three  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  the  27th  of  August  there  arrived  a 
messenger  to  inform  the  general  that  the  French  were 
advancing,  not  by  the  usual  road,  but  along  a  rude  hilly 
track,  a  track  so  rough  that  the  few  guns  they  pos- 
sessed had  to  be  dragged  over  the  rocks  by  the  peasants. 
But  for  this  accidental  warning  the  garrison  would 
almost  certainly  have  been  surprised  in  their  beds, 
and  the  panic  which  followed  would  in  that  case  have 
been  comparatively  excusable.  As  it  was.  General 
Lake  had  time  to  draw  out  his  forces,  and  to  dis- 
pose them  in  an  excellent  position  above  Castlebar, 
flanked  by  a  marsh  and  a  small  lake.  The  entire  force 
under  his  orders  amounted  to  over  four  thousand 
men,  nearly  half  of  which  seems  to  have  been  employed 
in  this  manner.  They  consisted  chiefly  of  yeomanry 
and  militia,  but  there  were  also  a  certain  number  of 
regular  troops  and  a  strong  body  of  artillery.  Under 
these  circumstances,  it  was  naturally  regarded  as  incred- 
ible that  so  mere  a  handful  as  the  invaders  were  known 


78  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

to  be,  would  venture  to  assail  a  position  held  by  a  foe 
more  than  twice  their  number,  and  fresh  after  a  night's 
rest.  In  so  calculating,  General  Lake  and  his  staff 
underrated  the  spirit  of  the  men  to  whom  the  1796- 
1797  campaign  in  Italy  was  still  a  very  recent  experi- 
ence. Undismayed  by  the  numbers  opposed  to  them, 
and  despite  the  fact  of  their  having  been  already  nearly 
fifteen  hours  on  foot,  the  French  came  steadily  up  the 
hill,  in  the  face  of  a  fire  which  scattered  their  untrained 
assistants  right  and  left.  The  top  reached,  they  rushed 
upon  the  defenders  with  level  bayonets.  The  artillery 
stood  to  their  guns,  Lord  Roden's  cavalry  behaved 
well,  but  the  rest  of  the  troops  seem  hardly  to  have 
attempted  to  make  a  stand.  Within  a  few  minutes 
the  whole  force  was  flying  in  wild  confusion  towards 
the  town.  Through  the  streets  of  Castlebar  they  were 
driven  before  the  French  bayonets,  and  out  into  the 
country  beyond,  over  which  they  continued  to  stream, 
flinging  their  weapons  away  from  them  in  all  directions 
in  their  headlong  haste. 

It  was,  as  will  be  seen  from  this  brief  account,  less 
a  defeat  than  a  simple  rout,  or,  as  it  has  always 
been  called  in  Ireland,  a  race  —  the  Eace  of  Castlebar. 
The  whole  incident  is  fortunately  almost  without  a 
parallel,  for  even  supposing  the  conduct  of  the  troops 
to  have  been  due  to  mere  panic,  that  of  General  Lake 
himself  still  remains  inexplicable.  He  had  seen  the 
foe  with  his  own  eyes,  consequently  must  have  known 
approximately  what  their  numbers  were.  In  spite  of 
this,  upon  his  arrival  at  Tuara,  thirty  miles  away,  he 
informed  the  inhabitants  that  the  French  were  in 
pursuit,  and  that  they  must  make  the  best  terms  they 
could  for  themselves.     A   similarly   alarmist   report 


VI.]  NINETY-EIGHT  79 

reached  Lord  Cornwallis,  as  the  despatches  of  the  day 
clearly  show.  That  night,  or  early  the  next  day, 
General  Lake  left  Tuam,  and  pushed  on  towards 
Athlone,  collecting  the  demoralised  remains  of  his 
force  as  he  went.  The  activity  displayed  upon  this 
occasion  seems  to  have  been  most  remarkable,  some 
of  the  men  who  had  fled  from  Castlebar  having  never 
ceased  running  all  that  night,  and  having  reached 
Athlone,  it  is  said,  within  the  twenty-eight  hours !  ^ 

What  lends  an  element  almost  of  comedy  to  the 
whole  affair  is  that  the  originators  of  this  panic 
never  made  the  slightest  attempt  to  pursue !  The 
French  remained  quietly  at  Castlebar,  satisfied,  and 
very  naturally  satisfied,  with  what  they  had  already 
achieved.  Here  they  stayed,  recruiting  themselves, 
and  seeking  for  reinforcements  for  about  ten  days. 
Meanwhile  fresh  troops  had  been  hurried  over  from 
England.  Lord  Cornwallis,  the  commander-in-chief, 
had  himself  advanced  as  far  as  Hollymount,  having 
under  him  a  force  of  not  less  than  twenty  thousand 
men.  Finding  themselves  in  danger  of  being  sur- 
rounded, the  invaders  at  length  left  Castlebar,  and 
started  towards  Sligo,  apparently  with  a  wild  idea  of 
making  a  detour,  and  so  descending  upon  Dublin. 
Had  they  reached  the  country  a  couple  of  months 
sooner,  and  while  the  rising  at  Wexford  was  still 
absorbing  all  the  energies  of  the  military,  it  is  hard 

1  For  further  contemporary  accounts,  see  The  Cornwallis  Corre- 
spondence, vol.  ii.  pp.  402  to  410 ;  also  An  Impartial  Relation  of  the 
Military  Operations  in  consequence  of  the  Landing  of  the  French 
Troops,  by  an  Officer  under  Lord  Cornwallis;  Notice  Historique 
sur  la  Descente  des  Fran(;ais,  par  L.  O.  Fontaine  (Adjutant-Gen- 
eral to  General  Humbert) ;  also  Saunders's  Newsletter  and  Faulk- 
ner's Journal  of  that  date. 


80  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

to  say  what  might  not  have  happened.  As  it  was,  the 
rising  had  been  by  this  time  effectually  crushed.  A 
reaction  of  terror  had  spread  over  the  whole  east  of 
Ireland.  The  hour  for  success  was  over,  and  after 
one  sharp  brush  with  Colonel  Vereker  at  Collooney, 
near  Sligo,  there  was  nothing  before  the  invaders  but 
an  honourable  surrender. 

This  took  place  upon  the  8th  of  September  at 
Ballinamuck,  a  little  village  upon  the  borders  of  Long- 
ford and  Koscommon.  At  this  euphoniously  named 
place,  the  French  found  Lord  Cornwallis  posted  with 
his  entire  force.  Although  augmented  by  some  two 
hundred  of  their  own  number,  whom  they  had  pre- 
viously left  at  Killala,  the  invaders  still  barely 
amounted  to  eight  hundred  and  forty  men.  Eight 
hundred  and  forty  against  twenty  thousand  is  rather 
long  odds,  even  for  heroes  !  They  capitulated  accord- 
ingly, stipulating  only  for  fair  terms.  These  were 
conceded,  and  in  their  case  were  strictly  adhered  to, 
although  their  wretched  adherents  were  mercilessly 
cut  down,  or,  when  captured,  hung  without  ceremony. 
A  dramatic  touch  is  lent  to  the  end  of  the  affair  by 
one  detail  more.  The  French  officers,  released  upon 
their  parole,  seem  to  have  ridden  back  to  Dublin 
with  the  members  of  Lord  Cornwallis's  staff.  The 
rank  and  file,  packed  into  a  string  of  turf-boats,  were 
sent  there  by  means  of  the  canal.  I  have  seen  an 
account  by  an  eye-witness,  in  one  of  the  Dublin  news- 
papers of  that  day,  which  graphically  describes  their 
being  slowly  towed  along,  singing  or  shouting  the 
"  Marseillaise  "  at  the  tops  of  their  voices,  as  they 
floated  through  the  bogs. 

So  ended  this  extraordinary  little  incident,  hardly 


VI.]  NINETY-EIGHT  81 

a  gratifying  one  from  the  military  point  of  view, 
but  at  least  what  is  called  "  instructive."  Years 
afterwards,  at  St.  Helena,  Napoleon  is  said  to  have 
dwelt  with  especial  emphasis  upon  the  error  he  had 
committed  in  not  having  made  a  descent  upon  Ire- 
land one  of  the  main  points  of  his  campaign  against 
England.  Had  he  done  so,  and  had  fortune  favoured 
him,  it  would  be  bold  to  assert  that  his  success,  so 
far  as  Ireland  was  concerned,  might  not  have  been 
complete.  Seeing  what  was  achieved  by  the  utterly 
inadequate  force  which  did  land,  it  would  require 
more  than  an  ordinary  amount  of  national  vanity  to 
deny  that,  given  a  sufficient  one,  led  by  Napoleon 
himself,  or  one  of  the  best  of  his  subordinates,  the 
entire  island  might  have  been  overrun.  It  is  true 
that  at  worst  this  could  only  have  been  temporary, 
seeing  that  Ireland,  like  every  other  newly  acquired 
French  possession,  would  have  had  to  be  surrendered 
at  the  end  of  the  war.  That  event,  however,  was  still 
fifteen  years  off,  and  in  the  meantime  the  effect, 
especially  as  regards  the  loss  of  prestige,  would  have 
been  enormous.  Happily  the  peril  was  averted,  as 
other  and  not  less  grave  perils  have  been  averted  from 
England  both  before  and  since.  The  fates  were  kind, 
just  as  they  had  been  kind  thirteen  months  previously, 
when  for  some  six  weeks  the  Channel  seemed  to  be  well- 
nigh  defenceless,  the  crew  of  every  man-of-war  having 
recently  been  in  mutiny,  while  a  hostile  fleet  with 
thirteen  thousand  troops  on  board,  lay  at  the  Texel, 
waiting  to  embark.  Only  the  winds  —  far  from  in- 
constant —  stood  firm  to  their  allegiance,  remaining 
throughout  those  six  weeks  at  the  one  point  from 
which  it  was  impossible  then  for  any  enemy  to  reach 


82  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

these  shores.  "  Those  ancient  and  unsubsidised  allies 
of  England,"  as  Sydney  Smith  calls  them,  "  allies  upon 
which  English  ministers  depend  as  much  for  saving 
kingdoms  as  washerwomen  do  for  drying  clothes  "  — 
the  winds  —  were  faithful,  and,  while  they  continued 
steadily  at  the  same  point,  the  perilous  moment 
passed ! 

This  dash  into  the  wider  arena  of  history  has 
taken  longer,  however,  than  it  ought  to  have  done. 
It  is  time  to  return  to  our  Edgeworth  family,  whom 
we  left  shut  up  in  their  inn,  and  counting  the  hours 
till  they  could  escape,  alike  from  rebels  and  defenders, 
back  to  their  beloved  home,  and  to  its  pursuits.  As 
often  happens  in  such  cases,  the  dangers  incurred 
from  the  zeal  of  the  local  loyalist  seem  to  have 
been  much  the  most  formidable  of  the  perils  of  the 
hour.  Mrs.  Edgeworth  in  her  3Iemoir  gives  a  lively 
description  of  the  narrow  escape  sustained  by  her 
husband  from  the  misplaced  zeal  of  his  Longford 
townsfolk :  — 

"  We  were  all  at  the  windows  of  a  room  in  the  inn  looking 
into  the  street,  when  we  saw  people  running,  throwing  up 
their  hats,  and  huzzaing.  A  dragoon  had  just  arrived  with 
the  news  that  General  Lake's  army  had  come  up  with  the 
French  and  the  rebels,  and  completely  defeated  them  at  a 
place  called  Ballinarauck,  near  Granard.  But  we  soon  saw  a 
man  in  a  sergeant's  uniform  haranguing  the  mob,  not  in 
honour  of  General  Lake's  victory,  but  against  Mr.  Edgeworth. 
The  landlady  was  terrified ;  she  said  that  Mr.  Edgeworth  was 
accused  of  having  made  signals  to  the  French  from  the  gaol, 
and  she  thought  the  mob  would  pull  down  her  house." 

This  imaginary  illumination  is  explained  to  have 
meant  nothing  more   formidable   than   two   farthing 


VI.]  NINETY-EIGHT  83 

candles,  by  the  light  of  which  Mr.  Edgeworth,  who 
was  in  charge  of  the  gaol,  had  been  reading  the  news- 
paper late  the  preceding  night.  These  farthing  candles 
the  over-strained  fancy  of  the  townspeople  had  con- 
strued into  signals  to  the  enemy !  The  excitement 
seems  to  have  been  at  first  appeased  by  seeing 
Mr.  Edgeworth  arrive  at  his  inn,  accompanied  by  an 
officer  in  uniform.  Later  in  the  evening,  this  officer, 
Major  Eustace,  '  having  incautiously  changed  his 
clothes,  both  narrowly  escaped  being  murdered  on 
the  very  door-step :  — 

"  Mr.  Edgeworth  went  after  dimier  with  Major  Eustace  to 
the  barrack.  Some  tiuie  after  dinner  dreadful  yells  were 
heard  in  the  street,  the  mob  had  attacked  tliem  on  then-  return 
from  the  barrack,  Major  Eustace  being  in  coloured  clothes, 
they  did  not  recognise  him  as  an  officer.  They  had  struck 
Mr.  Edgeworth  with  a  brickbat  in  the  neck,  and  as  they 
were  now  just  in  front  of  the  inn,  collaring  the  Major,  Mr. 
Edgeworth  cried  out  in  a  loud  voice,  '  Major  Eustace  is  in 
danger.'  Several  officers  who  were  at  dinner  in  the  inn, 
hearing  the  words  through  the  open  window,  rushed  out 
sword  in  hand,  dispersed  the  crowd  in  a  moment,  and  all 
the  danger  was  over." 


'o^ 


This  seems  to  have  been  the  last  of  the  family 
perils.  We  have  only  one  other  extract  bearing  upon 
the  situation,  namely  the  following  picture  from 
Miss  Edgeworth's  pen  of  the  historic  battlefield  of 
Ballinamuck,  to  which  —  mounted  upon  the  trusty 
"  Dapple  "  —  she  rode  in  company  with  her  father  and 
Mrs.  Edgeworth.  The  letter  is  to  her  cousin  Sophy 
Ruxton :  — 

"  Enclosed  I  send  you  a  little  sketch,  which  I  traced  from 


84  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

one  my  mother  drew  for  her  father,  of  the  situation  of  the  field 
of  battle  at  Ballinamuck  ;  it  is  about  four  miles  from  the  hills. 
My  father,  mother,  and  I  rode  to  look  at  the  camp.  Perhaps 
you  recollect  a  pretty  turn  in  the  road,  where  there  is  a  little 
stream  with  a  three-arched  bridge  ?  In  the  fields  which  rise 
in  a  gentle  slope  on  the  right  hand  side  of  this  stream  about 
sixty  bell  tents  were  pitched, the  arms  all  ranged  on  the  grass; 
before  the  tents,  poles  with  little  streamers  flying  here  and 
there,  groups  of  men  leading  their  horses  to  water,  others 
filling  kettles  and  black  pots,  some  cooking  under  the  hedges ; 
the  various  luiifovms  looked  pretty ;  Highlanders  gathering 
blackberries.  My  father  took  us  to  the  tent  of  Lord  Henry 
Seymour,  who  is  an  old  friend  of  his ;  he  breakfasted  here 
to-day,  and  his  plain  English  civility,  and  quiet  good  sense, 
was  a  fine  contrast  to  the  mob,  etc.  Dapple,  your  old 
acquaintance,  did  not  like  all  the  sights  at  the  camp  quite 
as  well  as  I  did." 

It  all  sounds  remarkably  pleasant,  and  not  at  all 
unlike  the  report  of  some  unusually  successful  picnic ! 
That  there  was  another  side  to  the  matter  —  that 
the  country  had  narrowly  escaped  from  a  most  for- 
midable peril ;  that  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands,  of 
deluded  peasants  were  at  that  moment  paying  for 
their  folly  and  ignorance  with  their  lives,  and  the 
destruction  of  their  homes  —  all  this  seems  hardly  to 
cast  a  shade  over  the  picture.  The  latest  record 
which  Miss  Edgeworth  has  left  behind  her  of  this  year 
of  terror,  massacre,  and  invasion  refers  to  the  family 
cats !  — 

"  I  forgot  to  tell  you  of  a  remarkable  event  in  the  history 
of  our  return  ;  all  the  cats,  even  those  who  properly  belong  to 
the  stable,  and  who  had  never  been  admitted  to  the  honours 
of  sitting  in  the  kitchen,  all  crowded  round  Kitty  with  con- 
gratulatory faces,  crawling  up  her  gown,  insisting  upon 
caressing  and  being  caressed  when  she  re-appeared  iu  the 


VI.]  NINETY-EIGHT  85 

lower  regions.     Mr.  Gilpin's  slander  against  cats  as  selfish, 
unfeeling  animals,  is  thus  refuted  by  stubborn  facts." 

In  this  manner — with  the  cheerful  return  of  the 
family  to  their  customary  occupations,  and  amid  the 
rejoicings  of  the  cats — the  grim  tale  of  the  year  1798 
comes  to  an  end  ! 


CHAPTER  VII 

CASTLE  BACKBENT — IRISH   LETTERS 

In  the  month  of  January  1800  we  find  Miss  Edgeworth 
inquiring  of  her  cousin  how  certain  books  are  to  be 
sent  to  her  aunt  Mrs.  Ruxton,  who  at  the  time  was 
from  home.  The  letter  ends — "We  have  begged 
Johnson  to  send  you  Castle  Rackrent.  I  hope  it  has 
reached  you  ?  Do  not  mention  to  any  one  that  it  is 
ours.  Have  you  seen  Minor  Morals  by  Mrs.  Smith? 
There  is  in  it  a  beautiful  little  botanical  poem  called 
the  'Calendar  of  Elora.'" 

Minor  Morals  by  Mrs.  Smith  seems  to  have  been 
at  least  as  important  a  work  in  Miss  Edgeworth's 
estimation  as  Castle  Eackrent.  This  letter  to  her 
cousin,  though  not  otherwise  noteworthy,  is  interest- 
ing as  regards  two  points.  One  is  the  inclusion  of 
her  father  as  joint  author  with  herself,  even  in  the 
case  of  a  book  in  the  writing  of  which  we  know,  as 
a  matter  of  absolute  certainty,  that  he  had  no  part. 
The  other  is  this  very  characteristic  belittling  of  what 
other  people  are  still  prepared  to  regard  as  a  work  of 
some  merit ! 

No  view  of  Miss  Edgeworth  can  be  more  erroneous 
than  the  one  which  supposes  in  her  a  desire  to  pose 
upon  any  self-raised  pedestal.  So  far  from  this,  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that — as  in  the  case  of  another 

86 


CH.  VII.]   CASTLE  RACKBENT— IRISH  LETTERS       87 

eminent  woman- writer  not  long  dead — she  might  have 
made  a  more  enduring  mark  had  she  taken  her  own 
pretensions  a  trifle  more  seriously  than  she  did. 
This  point  seems  to  be  worth  emphasising,  since  there 
is  a  tendency  to  confound  her  in  this  respect  with  her 
father,  and  to  place  the  stamp  of  pedagogic  self- 
sufficiency  alike  on  both.  How  little  the  daughter 
deserved  the  accusation  the  above  letter  alone  shows, 
and  as  in  that  instance  so  in  others,  save  where 
the  adored  parent  was  concerned,  whose  lightest 
emendation  weighed  more  with  her  than  the  whole 
of  those  writings,  which  it  is  our  present  presumptu- 
ous opinion  such  emendations  disfigure. 

Turning  to  the  book  itself.  Castle  Rackrent  stands 
upon  an  entirely  different  footing  from  any  of  Miss 
Edgeworth's  other  writings.  In  it  alone  we  find  her 
regarding  life,  —  not  from  any  utilitarian,  ethical,  or 
dogmatic  standpoint,  —  but  simply  and  solely  objec- 
tively, as  it  strikes,  and  as  it  ought  to  strike,  an 
artist.  So  far  from  any  cut-and-dry  code  of  morals 
being  enforced  in  it,  morals  of  every  sort  are  even 
startlingly  absent.  To  find  a  book  in  which  an 
equally  topsy-turvy  view  is  presented,  without  so 
much  as  a  hint  of  disapproval  upon  the  part  of  the 
author,  we  should  have  to  go  back  as  far  as  to  Defoe. 
Take  it  from  whatever  point  of  view  we  like — moral, 
philosophical,  social,  political — it  seems  to  stand  out- 
side of  the  entire  code,  human  or  divine.  It  has  been 
sometimes  asserted  that  Miss  Edgeworth  was  the 
parent  and  first  inventor  of  that  engine  of  instruction 
"  The  Novel  with  a  Purpose,"  but  if  Castle  Rackrent 
is  a  novel  with  a  purpose,  one  would  be  glad  to  be 
told  what  that  purpose  precisely  is  ? 


88  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

Admiration  for  the  book's  own  singular  merits  is 
enhanced,  moreover,  I  think,  when  we  consider  both 
the  difficulty  of  the  subject,  and  the  antecedent  impro- 
bability of  any  one  in  the  position  of  its  author  being 
able  to  surmount  them.  "  Honest  Thady,"  although 
calling  himself  a  steward,  is  in  reality  a  peasant,  with 
all  the  ideas  and  instincts  of  one  ;  an  eighteenth  cen- 
tury peasant,  one  who  has  always  lived,  and  whose 
forebears  before  him  have  always  lived,  under  the  same 
lords,  and  to  whom  therefore  their  little  peculiarities 
have  come  to  be  as  it  were  a  law  of  nature,  no  more  to 
be  disputed  than  the  over-frequency  of  wet  days,  or 
the  inclemencies  of  the  winter.  All  peasants  are 
difficult  and  elusive  creatures  to  portray,  but  perhaps 
an  Irish  peasant — alike  by  his  good  and  by  his  bad 
qualities — is  the  most  elusive  and  the  most  difficult 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  Any  one  who  has  ever 
tried  to  fling  a  net  over  him  knows  perfectly  well  in 
his  or  her  own  secret  soul  that  the  attempt  has  been  a 
failure — at  best  that  entire  realms  and  regions  of  the 
subject  have  escaped  observation,  A  whole  world  of 
forgotten  beliefs,  extinct  traditions,  lost  ways  of 
thought,  obsolete  observances,  must  be  felt,  known, 
understood,  and  realised,  before  we  can  even  begin  to 
perceive  existence  as  we  are  expected  to  see  it  by  such 
an  one  as  Thady.  Especially  was  this  the  case  at  that 
date  with  regard  to  certain  mysterious  institutions 
known  as  "  masters  " ;  beings  born,  in  the  old  Irish 
phrase,  to  "  reign  over  "  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  as 
little  expected  to  be  trammelled  by  the  ordinary  rules 
of  right  and  wrong  as  any  Olympian  deities.  An  in- 
genious friend  of  the  present  writer  not  long  since 
remarked  that  the  only  parallel  for  the  ways  of  Sir 


vii.]       CASTLE  BACKRENT—miSH  LETTERS         89 

Condy  and  his  predecessors  which  is  to  be  found  in 
literature  is  that  of  the  equally  admired  and  respected 
Noor  ad  Deen  of  the  Arabian  I^ights.  This  worthy, 
it  may  be  remembered,  gives  away  his  father's  houses 
and  lands  to  any  one  who  happens  to  take  a  fancy  to 
them,  and  being  upon  one  occasion  somewhat  pressed 
for  debt,  he  sells  his  wife  —  with  her  entire  approval 

—  in  the  market-place.  Finally,  he  meets  with  her 
again ;  they  escape  together ;  and,  being  rather  hungry, 
he  is  so  overcome  with  gratitude  to  a  fisherman  who 
has  given  him  a  couple  of  fishes,  that  he  not  only  forces 
him  to  accept  of  all  his  remaining  gold,  but  of  his  wife 
into  the  bargain,  this  time  ivithout  that  lady's  consent 
or  approval. 

To  what  extent  the  parallel  can  be  said  to  hold  good  I 
leave  to  more  discriminating  minds  !  Certainly,  to  our 
sober  notions,  the  code  of  honour  and  morals,  as  we  see 
them  through  Thady's  eyes,  is  to  the  full  as  mysterious 
as  any  Eastern  one  could  be.     How  Miss  Edgeworth 

—  daughter  of  an  irreproachable  father,  one  who  never 
got  drunk,  even  when  common  politeness  might  have 
required  him  to  do  so  —  managed  to,  so  to  speak,  "  get 
behind"  such  a  standpoint,  will  always  remain  a 
puzzle.  Fortunately,  as  regards  the  actual  produc- 
tion of  the  book,  we  are  not  left  entirely  to  our  own 
unassisted  guesses,  since  we  have  its  author's  account 
of  the  matter,  one  written  many  years  later  in  response 
to  an  appeal  for  enlightenment  from  a  correspondent. 
Although  printed,  this  account  has  also  never,  I  think, 
been  published  before  :  — 

"  Edgeworthstowis^,  Sept.  6,  1834. 
"...  The  only  character  drawn  from  the  life  in  Castle 
Rackrent  is  '  Thady '  himself,  the  teller  of  the  story. 


90  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

He  was  an  old  steward  (not  very  old,  though,  at  that 
time;  I  added  to  his  age,  to  allow  him  time  for  the 
generations  of  the  family).  I  heard  him  when  I  first 
came  to  Ireland,  and  his  dialect  struck  me,  and  his 
character ;  and  I  became  so  acquainted  with  it,  that  I 
could  think  and  speak  in  it  without  effort ;  so  that 
when,  for  mere  amusement,  without  any  idea  of  pub- 
lishing, I  began  to  write  a  family  history  as  Thady 
would  tell  it,  he  seemed  to  stand  beside  me  and 
dictate  ;  and  I  wrote  as  fast  as  my  pen  could  go.  The 
characters  are  all  imaginary.  Of  course  they  must 
have  been  compounded  of  persons  I  had  seen,  or  in- 
cidents I  had  heard,  but  how  compounded  I  do  not 
know ;  not  by  '  long  forethought,'  for  I  had  never 
thought  of  them  till  I  began  to  write,  and  had  made 
no  sort  of  plan,  sketch,  or  framework.  There  is  a  fact, 
mentioned  in  a  note,  of  Lady  Cathcart  having  been 
shut  up  by  her  husband,  Mr.  M'Guire,  in  a  house  in 
this  neighbourhood.  So  much  I  knew,  but  the  charac- 
ters are  totally  different  from  what  I  had  heard.  In- 
deed, the  real  people  had  been  so  long  dead,  that  little 
was  known  of  them.  Mr.  M'Guire  had  no  resemblance, 
at  all  events,  to  my  Sir  Kit,  and  I  knew  nothing  of 
Lady  Cathcart  but  that  she  was  fond  of  money,  and 
would  not  give  up  her  diamonds.  Sir  Condy's  history 
was  added  two  years  afterwards :  it  was  not  drawn 
from  life,  but  the  good-natured  and  indolent  extrava- 
gance was  suggested  by  a  relation  of  mine  long  since 
dead.  All  the  incidents  are  pure  invention;  the  duty 
work,  and  duty  fowl,  facts." 

Further  than  this  we  cannot  get.     The  book  grew — 
as  most  of  the  good  books  the  world  possesses  have 


vn.]       CASTLE  B A C KB E NT— IRISH  LETTERS  91 

probably  grown — by  a  process  peculiar  to  itself,  a 
process  not  to  be  fully  explained  by  its  author,  and 
still  less  therefore  by  any  one  else.  One  fact,  at  least, 
is  clear  to  our  satisfaction,  namely,  that  it  came  into 
existence  by  a  process  the  exact  opposite  of  all  Mr. 
Edgeworth's  theories  as  to  the  methods  which  conduce 
to  the  production  of  superior  literature.  So  subversive 
is  it  of  these,  so  wholly  independent  and  revolutionary, 
that  some  wonder  arises  that  he  did  not  —  upon  his 
return  from  those  duties  which  had  so  fortunately 
detained  him  during  its  inception  —  order  the  cancel- 
ling, or  the  complete  remodelling,  of  anything  so 
heterodox.  Had  he  done  so,  we  cannot  doubt  that 
it  would  have  been  condemned  by  its  creator  with- 
out a  qualm.  Happily  he  abstained ;  Castle  Rackrent 
survived,  and  Sir  Murtagh,  Sir  Kit,  and  Sir  Condy 
have  remained  to  be  the  amusement  and  the  bewilder- 
ment of  three  generations  of  appreciative  readers. 

That  a  book  which  stole  upon  the  world  in  so  quiet 
and  anonymous  a  fashion  should  have  at  once  made  its 
mark,  is  a  fact  creditable,  I  think,  to  the  literary  per- 
ceptions of  that  day.  By  the  following  year  a  new 
edition  had  been  urgently  called  for,  and  this  time 
"  By  Maria  Edgeworth  "  appeared  upon  the  title-page. 
**  Its  success,"  Mrs.  Edgeworth  writes  in  her  Memoir, 
"  had  been  so  triumphant  that  some  one  —  I  heard  his 
name  at  the  time  but  do  not  remember  it,  and  it  is 
better  forgotten  —  not  only  asserted  that  he  was  the 
author,  but  actually  took  the  trouble  to  copy  out 
several  pages  with  corrections  and  erasures,  as  if  it 
Avas  his  original  ms."  A  year  later,  writing  from  Paris, 
the  same  lady  tells  her  correspondent  that  "  Castle 
Rackrent  has  been  translated  into  German,  and  we  saw 


92  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

in  a  French  book  an  extract  from  it,  giving  the  wake, 
the  confinement  of  Lady  Cathcart,  and  Thady  sweeping 
the  stairs  with  his  wig,  as  common  and  usual  occur- 
rences in  that  extraordinary  kingdom." 

Considering  this  exceptional  and  quite  unlooked  for 
success,  it  seems  curious  that  Miss  Edgeworth  should 
never  again  have  tried  her  hand  at  a  story  in  the  same 
vein.  Certainly  she  never  did  so.  Her  other  Irish 
books,  Tlie  Absentee,  Ennui,  Onnond,  are  all  of  them 
excellent  stories,  but  as  a  transcript  direct  from  life, 
unaltered  in  the  telling,  unshackled  by  any  theory, 
unhampered  by  moralising,  Castle  Eackrent  stands 
alone.  Of  her  numerous  other  writings,  the  ones  which 
seem  to  stand  nearest  to  it,  alike  for  freedom  and 
originality,  are  her  familiar  letters,  for  which  I  have 
already  expressed  my  own  extreme  admiration.  Out 
of  various  still  unprinted  ones  belonging  to  this  date  I 
have  selected  the  following  three.  The  first  is  entirely 
taken  up,  as  will  be  seen,  with  the  description  of  a 
house  in  which  she  was  then  staying,  the  dilapidation 
of  which  almost  exceeds  credibility.  It  will  be  recog- 
nised by  readers  of  Ormoncl  as  having  been  afterwards 
utilised  as  the  home  of  "  King  Condy  " :  — 

"Chantinee,  Jnhj  Srd,  1808. 
"I  must  reserve  the  amusement  of  describing  the 
humours  of  Chantinee  till  we  meet,  for  folios  of  paper 
would  not  give  you  an  adequate  idea  of  their  infinite 
variety.  The  house  in  which  I  now  enjoy  myself  has 
stood,  certainly,  in  spite  of  fate,  and  of  all  the  efforts 
of  man  to  throw  it  down  or  blow  it  up.  Tell  William, 
and  try  if  you  can  to  make  him  believe  it,  that,  after 
this  house  was  built,  the  owner  quarried  and  blasted  the 


VII.]       CASTLE  BACKBENT—imSB.  LETTEES         93 

rocks  uuderneatli  it,  till  he  made  a  kitclien  twenty  feet 
square  and  various  subterranean  offices.  A  gentleman 
who  was  breakfasting  with  him  at  the  time  this  blast- 
ing underneath  them  was  going  on,  heard  one  of  the 
explosions,  and  starting,  Mr.  Corry  quietly  said,  '  It 
is  only  the  blasting  in  the  kitcher.;  finish  your  break- 
fast.' But  the  visitor,  not  being  so  well  trained  as 
Charles  the  Twelfth's  secretary,  ran  out  of  the  house. 
After  all  this  was  accomplished,  and  the  house,  con- 
trary to  the  prophecies  of  all  who  saw,  or  heard  of  it,  still 
standing,  the  owner  set  to  work  at  the  roof,  which  he 
fancied  was  too  low.  You  may  judge  of  the  size  and 
weight  of  the  said  roof  when  I  tell  you  that  it  covers 
a  hall  42  feet  long  —  two  oblong  rooms  at  each  end  of 
the  hall  33  and  35  long,  by  above  20  broad,  and  an 
oval  room  at  the  back  of  the  hall  seven  and  twenty  by 
four  and  twenty.  Undaunted  by  the  ponderous  magni- 
tude of  the  undertaking,  this  intrepid  architect  cut  all 
the  rafters  of  the  roof  clean  off  from  the  walls  on  all 
sides,  propped  it  in  the  middle,  and  fairly  raised  it 
altogether  by  men  and  levers,  to  the  height  he 
wanted ;  there  it  stood  propped  in  air  till  he  built  the 
walls  up  to  it,  pieced  the  rafters  and  completed  it  to 
his  satisfaction !  But  alas,  he  slated  it  so  ill,  or  so 
neglected  to  slate  it  at  all,  that,  in  rainy  weather, 
torrents  of  water  pour  in,  and  in  winter  it  is  scarcely 
habitable,  by  man  or  brute.  The  walls  and  coved 
ceilings  of  the  fine  rooms,  and  all  the  really  beautiful 
cornices,  are  so  stained  and  spoiled  with  damp,  that  it 
is  lamentable  and  provoking  to  behold  them.  In  the 
drawing-room  (I  hope  you  have  firm  confidence  in  my 
truth,  or  you  will  now  certainly  think  I  am  fabling) 
there  is  a  fuchsia  sixteen  feet  high,  trained  to  a  dead 


94  MARIA   EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

stem  of  alder  which  is  planted  in  its  tub.  The  fuchsia 
is  six  feet  broad  and  as  thick  as  the  matted  honey- 
suckle on  the  garden  wall ;  and  you  may  shake  it  as 
you  would  a  sheet  of  honey-suckle  that  you  were 
pulling  down.  Geraniums  13  and  14  feet  high  all 
round  the  bow-window  of  this  room.  Some  in  rich 
blossom,  others  ragged,  and  wild,  or  as  Mr.  C.  says,  in 
deshabille.  He  sacrifices  the  neatness  of  the  room,  to 
be  sure,  to  his  vegetable  loves;  for  he  waters  them 
every  morning  with  soap-suds,  which  stream  about  in 
uncontrolled  meanders." 

The  next  letter  is  to  the  faithful  housekeeper,  Mrs. 
Billamore  (familiarly  Kitty),  whose  acquaintance  the 
reader  made  in  the  last  chapter,  and  to  whose  charity 
towards  the  wife  of  one  of  the  rebels  the  family  owed 
it  that  Edgeworthstown  was  not  then  pillaged,  or 
possibly  burnt.  When  this  letter  was  written  Mrs. 
Billamore  was  upon  a  visit  at  Black  Castle,  and  Miss 
Edgeworth  is  posting  her  up  in  the  doings  of  the  family 
since  her  dejDarture  :  — 

"  Edgeworthstown,  Wednesday  [no  other  date^. 

"  My  dear  good  Mrs.  Billamore,  —  I  write  as  I 
promised  you  I  would,  to  tell  you  how  all  your  chil- 
dren do,  and  how  all  is  going  on  in  your  absence.  In 
one  word  the  children  are  all  icell  —  and  my  father 
pretty  loell,  and  all  going  on  well.  Therefore  enjoy 
yourself  completely  at  dear  Black  Castle.  I  hope  you 
have  been  well,  and  I  need  not  ask  you  whether  you 
are  happy.  I  know  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  so 
nearly  connected  with  this  family  as  you  are  to  be 
anything  but  delighted  at  Black  Castle. 

"  I  turned  a  pig  away  yesterday  from  your  tree, 


VII.]       CASTLE  BACKE EXT— IRISH  LETTERS         95 

where  he  was  routing  with  all  his  snout,  and  Prince 
was  so  cowardly  that  he  did  not  dare  to  pull  hiiu  by 
the  ears,  he  only  barked  round  and  round  him,  and 
the  pig,  despising  him  for  a  poltroon  as  he  was,  went 
on  eating  quietly  —  so  I  roared  out  of  my  window : 

"  '  Is  there  anybody  alive  in  the  back  yard  ? ' 

"  '  Yes  Ma'am,  Pat.' 

" '  Then  run  and  drive  the  pig  away  that  is  routing 
at  Mrs.  Billamore's  tree.' 

"It  was  raining  very  hard,  and  Pat  in  his  yellow 
waistcoat,  which  you  know  he  is  scruplesome  about 
wetting,  but  he  ran  out  instantly,  and  cursed  and 
stoned  the  pig,  and  when  the  pig  ran  and  squeaked. 
Prince  grew  wondrous  brave,  and  chased  him  through 
the  gate  in  triumph. 

"  My  mother  gathered  a  bushel  of  roses  out  of  your 
garden  yesterday,  and  ornamented  the  library  with 
them.  Fanny  and  Sophy  desire  me  to  tell  you  that 
they  do  the  fruit  for  dessert  every  day  and  Honora 
generally,  so  how  it  is  I  don't  know.  All  I  know  is 
we  have  plenty  of  everything,  and  that  is  a  wonder 
in  these  hard  times,  and  Mrs.  Billamore  away ! 

"  John  Langan  says  that  Mistress  Bell'more  will  be 
Jit  to  be  tied  when  she  hears  that  the  master  has  gone 
and  given  Pat  Carroll  four  guineas  a  hundred  for  the 
butter,  instead  of  three  pound  five  for  which  Mrs. 
Bell'more  bargained  for  it.  But  Kitty,  my  dear,  if 
you  had  seen  how  happy  Pat  Carroll  looked  when 
he  came  to  pay  his  rent  and  my  father  allowed  him 
that  unexpected  price  !  His  long  chin  became  two 
inches  shorter,  and  though  he  looked  before  as  if  he 
had  never  smiled  since  he  was  created,  he  then  smiled 
without  power  to   help  it,   and  went  away  with   as 


96  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

sunshiny  a  face  as  ever  you  saw,  cairoUing  his  Honor's 
praises  for  the  best  landlord  in  the  three  counties. 

"  We  heard  of  Sneyd's  landing  safely.  My  mother 
heard  from  Cork,  all  well.  Adieu,  my  dear  good  Kitty. 
—  I  am  your  truly  affectionate 

Maria  Edgeworth." 

How  many  people,  one  wonders,  would  have  taken 
the  trouble  to  write  such  a  letter,  even  to  the  most 
faithful  of  housekeepers  ?  Better  even  than  this, 
the  best  of  all  Miss  Edgeworth's  letters  of  that 
date,  is,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  the  following  one  to 
her  cousin  Sophy  Euxton,  concerning  the  loss  of  a 
certain  Float,  or  raft,  upon  which  the  Edgeworth  family 
and  their  visitors  were  in  the  habit  of  crossing  the 
little  river  Inny,  into  what  had  been  christened  "  The 
Yellow  Dwarf's  Country,"  a  region  lying  between  Edge- 
worthstown  and  Pakenham  Hall,  on  the  way  to  Black 
Castle.  Here  the  point  lies,  in  the  impossibility  of 
ascertaining  what  did  befall  the  Float,  one  report  of  the 
disaster  superseding  the  last  —  "  as  fast  as  the  figure  of 
a  dragon  in  the  clouds  on  a  windy  day."  Individuals 
pass,  incidents  vary,  politics  change,  but  Ireland 
itself  never  changes ! 


*o^ 


"  Edgeworthstown,  Feb.  26,  1805. 
"  Give  ray  love  to  my  uncle  and  Margaret,  and  tell 
them  I  hear  the  Float  is  sunk.  It  is  well  we  were  not 
upon  it !  The  story  of  the  sinking  has  been  told  to  me 
in  half  a  dozen  ways,  and  the  report  changes  as  fast 
as  the  figure  of  a  dragon  in  the  clouds  on  a  Avindy  day. 
First  it  was  '  an  ass  laden  with  Spanish  dollars 
belonging  to  one  Tierney,  of  Drogheda,  that  sank  it 
entirely,  only  the  man  caught  by  the  rope  and  was 


VII.]       CASTLE  BACKEEXT—miSn  LETTERS         97 

saved.'  Then  it  was  'Nine  cars  loaded  with  yarn, 
please  your  honour,  coming  to  the  fair,  and  Tierney 
of  Drogheda  along  with  them,  and  they  all  went  down, 
only  Tierney  himself  and  the  horses  swam  ashore.' 
Then  five  minutes  afterwards  we  hear  that  '  The  yarn 
was  saved,  and  nothing  in  life  went  down  but  the 
Float  itself,  though  all  the  men,  and  cars,  and  yarn 
were  upon  it ! '  To  gain  any  more  correct  information 
at  this  hour  (ten)  of  the  night,  and  on  such  a  night, 
would  be  beyond  the  power  of  any  '  of  woman  born ' : 
for  at  this  hour  of  a  fair  day  — 

"  '  Men,  asses,  dollars,  yarn,  in  gay  confusion  fall. 
And  one  oblivious  stream  of  whisky  covers  all.'  " 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BELINDA— ymYV  TO   PARIS 

We  now  pass  to  quite  another  phase  of  our  author's 
literary  activity.  Hitherto  we  have  been  considering 
her  —  as  a  writer  of  chiklren's  books ;  as  her  father's  col- 
laborator, enlivening  with  her  nimble  pen  his  somewhat 
arid  and  turgid  disquisitions  ;  next,  as  the  producer  of 
a  picture  of  the  past,  unique  in  literature,  one  which 
may  be  said  to  have  created  a  genre  of  its  own,  a  genre 
in  which  no  other  writer  has  even  attempted  to  rival 
her.  We  now  find  ourselves  called  upon  to  consider 
her  from  an  entirely  new  aspect,  as  the  painter  of  polite 
manners,  —  of  "  fashionable  life,"  so  called  —  as  the  de- 
lineator of  a  whole  host  of  belles,  beaux,  prudes,  quizzes, 
"  catch-match-makers,"  and  the  like  —  beings  who  have 
either  wholly  disappeared  from  existence,  or  have  been 
rechristened  since  her  time  Avith  new  names. 

As  a  matter  of  preference  I  will  not  ])retend  to 
follow  her  in  this  new  departure  with  the  same  interest 
as  in  the  preceding  one.  That  is  scarcely  a  reason,  how- 
ever, for  failing  to  recognise  her  great  superiority  in 
it  over  most  of  her  predecessors,  especially  over  such 
predecessors  as  confined  themselves  within  the  bounds 
of  the  decorous.  The  first  of  her  "  Fashionable  Tales  " 
is  not  included  in  the  two  sets  of  volumes  published 
under  that  title.     Miss  Belinda  Portman,  who  gives 

98 


CHAP.  VIII.]     BELIXD A  — YISIT  TO   PARIS  99 

her  name  to  the  book,  has  been  condemned  by  various 
critical  persons  as  cold,  artificial,  prudish,  and  so  on.  She 
seems  for  some  reason  to  have  been  no  favourite  with 
her  creator ;  indeed,  if  we  wish  to  find  really  damaging 
criticisms  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  books,  the  best  place  to 
look  for  them  is  in  her  own  comments  !  Wlien,  a  good 
many  years  afterwards,  she  was  revising  the  book  for 
republication,  she  berates  its  unfortunate  heroine  as 
follows :  "  I  really  was  so  provoked  with  the  cold 
tameness  of  that  stick  or  stone,  Belinda,  that  I  could 
have  torn  the  pages  in  pieces  !  As  the  hackney  coach- 
man said,  '  Mend  yon !    Better  make  a  new  one ! ' " 

For  another  bit  of  self-criticism  as  lively  and  as 
scathing  as  this,  we  should  have,  I  think,  to  look  far ! 
My  personal  acquaintance  with  the  young  lady  in 
question  happens  to  be  of  quite  recent  origin,  although 
the  rest  of  her  sisters  in  fiction  have  been  intimate 
acquaintances  since  childhood.  In  spite  of  this  unen- 
dearing  circumstance,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  fail  to 
perceive  any  very  marked  diiference  between  them. 
Belinda  —  like  Helen,  like  Miss  Annaly,  Miss  Nugent, 
and  the  rest  of  her  sisterhood  —  is  at  once  a  remarkably 
sprightly,  and  a  remarkably  discreet  young  woman. 
Life  is  for  her  a  tolerably  simple  affair,  chiefly  compli- 
cated by  the  anxiety  of  her  relations  to  see  her  suitably 
married,  by  her  own  sense  of  propriety,  and  by  some 
slight  doubts  as  to  the  seriousness  of  the  attentions 
which  she  receives  from  her  various  suitors.  One 
lamentable  affliction  the  book  certainly  suffered  from. 
Whereas  we  have  seen  that  Castle  Rackrent  wholly 
escaped  the  parental  emendations,  upon  none  of  Miss 
Edgeworth's  books  did  her  father's  editorial  hand  fall 
so  heavily,  or  with  such  destructive  effect,  as  upon  this 


100  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

uufortimate  Belinda.  Intended  to  be  a  lively  picture 
of  life,  as  found  in  the  gayest  of  gay  London  drawing- 
rooms,  it  was  liis  happy  inspiration  to  decorate  it  with 
all  the  provincial  solemnities  of  Lichfield,  and  with  all 
the  educational  aberrations  of  the  late  lamented  Mr, 
Day.  Because  Mr.  Day  had  adopted  a  "young  person," 
had  kept  her  for  years  —  apparently  with  the  utmost 
decorum — under  his  own  roof,  and  had  proposed  in  due 
time  to  make  her  his  wife,  therefore  the  hero  of  Belinda, 
the  brilliant  Clarence  Harvey  —  a  wit,  a  man  of  clubs, 
and  of  the  world  —  had  to  be  twisted  out  of  all  con- 
sistency, and  forced  to  do  the  same!  The  natural 
result  follows.  The  whole  movement  of  the  book 
becomes  mechanical ;  the  machinery  rattles ;  the  wits 
prose  and  preach ;  and  a  work  which  had  begun  as  a 
light  and  Sheridan-like  comedy  of  manners,  sinks  into  a 
morass  of  dull  moralising  and  ponderous,  soul- wearying 
propriety. 

Yet,  admitting  all  this,  and  despite  these  very 
serious  drawbacks,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  excellent 
writing  in  Belinda.  Sir  Philip  Baddeley's  report  of 
the  fetes  at  Frogmore  is  a  gem  of  the  purest  water. 
Excellent  also  is  the  scene  in  which  Clarence  Harvey 
borrows  Lady  Delacour's  hoop  upon  her  return  from 
Court,  and  is  introduced  to  the  company  as  the 
"Countesse  de  Pomenare,"  but  loses  the  bet  he  has 
made  of  being  competent  to  manage  it,  by  stooping  too 
suddenly,  thereby  overturning  the  music-stand,  and 
sending  the  contents  of  it  flying  across  the  room.  Lady 
Delacour  herself  is  not  only  a  fine  lady,  but  a  witty 
one ;  indeed,  Miss  Edgeworth's  fine  ladies  almost  always 
seem  to  carry  conviction.  It  is  rather  curious,  by  the 
way,  to  note  the  total  failure  in  this  small  particular 


Till.]  BELIXDA  — VISIT  TO  PARIS  101 

of  a  much  greater  writer,  and  more  perfect  artist  — 
the  incomparable  Jane  Austen.  Lady  Susan  is  not  the 
tale  of  Miss  Austen's  which  any  adorer  of  hers  would 
assuredly  take  down  by  preference.  It  is  a  belated 
story,  and  a  story  which  ought  perhaps  never  to  have 
been  resuscitated.  It  happens,  however,  to  be  the  only 
one  in  which  the  habits  and  customs  of  this  particular 
species  have  been  minutely  portrayed,  and  it  only 
needs  to  be  opened  in  order  to  see  how  absolutely 
remote  the  presentment  is  from  anything  that  could 
by  any  possibility  have  existed  in  reality.  To  Miss 
Edgeworth,  on  the  other  hand,  the  type  was  fairly 
well  known,  with  all  its  ingratiating  little  ways ;  its 
airs  and  its  graces ;  its  spleens  and  its  vapours ;  its 
daintinesses,  impertinences,  flirtations,  indiscretions, 
and  the  rest.  Her  fops,  again,  are  admirable,  and  are 
presented  in  so  natural  a  fashion  as  almost  to  make  us 
believe  in  the  creature's  reality.  A  contemporary's 
opinion  is  no  doubt  in  such  matters  of  most  value,  and 
the  truth  of  her  delineations  has  been  vouched  for  by 
a  contemporary  of  hers,  by  no  means  prone  to  indulgent 
judgments  —  by  the  redoubtable  Lord  Jeffrey.  We  find 
him  speaking  of  her  ''  faithful  representations  of  the 
spoken  language  of  persons  of  wit  and  politeness  " ; 
and  again  of  "that  gift  of  sportive,  but  cutting 
medisance,  which  is  sure  of  success  in  those  circles 
where  success  is  supposed  to  be  the  most  difficult  and 
desirable." 

No  doubt  Miss  Edgeworth's  advantages  in  this  re- 
spect had  been  above  the  average,  and  she  was  destined 
a  little  later  to  have  further,  and  yet  more  enlarged 
opportunities  of  studying  this  desirable  art  of  "sportive, 
but  cutting  medisance."     The  Peace  of  Amiens  —  that 


'O 


yi^mSiTY  OF  CAlU-DnilA 
RlVtRS>DE 


102  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

brief  breathing-space  for  a  generation  fated  to  grow  up 
in  an  atmosjjhere  of  continuous  figbting  —  was  about  to 
set  every  one  wild  witli^the  desire  to  visit  or  re-visit 
Paris,  and  amongst  such  curious  and  intelligent  in- 
vestigators it  was  only  natural  that  jNIr,  Edgeworth 
was  to  be  found. 

Before  accompanying  her  thither,  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  first  note  down  a  few  more  or  less  important 
family  details,  which  have  been  overlooked  in  larger  pre- 
occupations. Some  of  these  belong  as  far  back  as  the 
period  of  the  first  visit  to  Clifton,  and  ought  to  have 
been  recorded  then,  but  will  have  to  come  in  here  out 
of  their  due  order.  The  first  in  point  of  time  was  the 
visit  to  his  family  of  "  poor  Richard,"  Mr.  Edgeworth's 
seemingly  quite  unimportant  eldest  son,  who,  after  a 
brief  appearance,  disappears  into  space,  and  is  heard 
of  no  more ;  primogeniture  was  apparently  not  one  of 
the  institutions  held  in  high  regard  by  that  theorist ! 
Two  other  events  belonging  to  about  the  same  period 
were  the  marriages  of  Maria's  "own"  sisters,  Anna 
and  Emmeline.  The  first  of  these  married  Dr. 
Beddoes,  and  became  the  mother  of  the  poet  of  that 
name ;  the  second  shortly  afterwards  married  a  IVIr. 
King,  a  surgeon.  These  two  marriages,  and  Richard's 
departure,  left  Miss  Edgeworth  herself  the  only  child 
of  the  first  marriage  who  still  lived  at  home.  Another 
event  belonging  to  these  last  years  of  the  century  was 
the  brief  appearance  and  disappearance  of  her  father 
in  the  character  of  an  Irish  legislator.  He  was  re- 
turned at  the  close  of  1798  for  one  of  the  Longford 
boroughs,  and  sat  in  the  last  Irish  Parliament,  the 
separate  existence  of  which  came  to  an  end  a  few 
months  later.     It  is  characteristic  of  what  is  perhaps 


VIII.]  BELIXDA—YISIT  TO  PARIS  103 

the  most  disreputable  of  all  recorded  political  jobs  that 
the  newly  elected  member  was  offered  three  thousand 
guineas  for  the  use  of  his  seat  during  the  remaining 
weeks  of  the  session,  but  very  properly  refused,  not 
wishing,  in  his  own  words  —  "  to  quarrel  with  myself, 
and  lose  my  own  good  opinion  at  my  time  of  life." 
"We  are  farther  informed  that,  while  approving  upon 
the  whole  of  the  Union,  he  voted  against  it,  a  proceed- 
ing the  propriety  of  which  is  less  immediately  obvious. 
Yet  another  event  of  some  importance  was  the  death  of 
Dr.  Darwin,  who  was  seized  with  his  last  illness  while 
in  the  very  act  of  writing  a  letter  to  his  friend,  Mr, 
Edgeworth.  This  was  a  loss  felt  in  different  degrees 
of  intensity  by  all  the  various  members  of  the  Edge- 
worth  family. 

Meantime  the  production  alike  of  books  and  of 
infants  seems  to  have  gone  on  uninterruptedly  in  that 
family.  In  the  same  year,  1798,  Practical  Education  was 
published,  and  "  was  praised  and  abused  enough  "  — so 
Mrs.  Edgeworth  tells  us  in  her  Memoir  — "  to  make  the 
authors  immediately  famous."  Possibly  it  was  for 
the  sake  of  sipping  this  fame  in  its  freshness  that  Mr. 
Edgeworth  decided  to  take  his  daughter  and  wife  to 
England  in  the  spring  of  1799.  At  Clifton  in  the  same 
year  the  first  of  the  children  of  the  fourth  and  last 
Mrs.  Edgeworth  was  born  —  the  seventeenth  child,  by 
the  way,  calling  Mr.  Edgev/orth  father  !  In  connection 
with  its  arrival  a  quaint  little  anecdote  may  be  found 
recorded  in  the  family  annals.  —  "  Maria  took  her  little 
sister  to  bring  down  to  her  father,  but  when  she  had 
descended  a  few  steps  a  panic  seized  her,  and  she  was 
afraid  to  go  either  backwards  or  forwards.  She  sat 
down  on  the  stairs,  afraid  she  should  drop  the  child, 


104  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

afraid  that  its  head  would  come  off,  and  afraid  that  her 
father  would  fiud  her  sitting  there  and  laugh  at  her; 
till,  seeing  the  footman  passing,  she  called '  Samuel '  in 
a  terrified  voice,  and  made  him  walk  before  her  back- 
wards down  the  stairs  till  she  safely  reached  the  sit- 
ting-room." 

This  sister  of  a  newborn  had  already  reached  the 
tolerably  mature  age  of  thirty-three,  yet  to  her  bio- 
grapher it  is  of  some  interest  to  reflect  that  it  was  not 
till  nearly  three  years  later  that  occurred  the  first 
sentimental  adventure  which  seems  ever  to  have  be- 
fallen her  in  her  own  person.  From  Clifton  the  party 
went  to  Loudon,  and  thence  home  to  Edgeworths- 
town.  Eighteen  months  later  they  are  again  in 
England,  visiting  Chester,  Newcastle,  and  various 
other  places.  At  Leicester  they  made  inquiries  of  a 
polite  bookseller  with  regard  to  the  sale  of  Belinda,  and 
other  recent  works  of  some  interest  to  themselves. 
By  him  they  were  informed  that,  whereas  the  others 
were  in  good  repute,  Castle  Rackrent  was  in  better,  the 
others  often  borrowed,  but  Castle  RacJcrent  oiten  bought. 
It  was  apparently  upon  the  same  polite  bookseller's 
invitation  that  they  visited  a  Miss  Watts,  a  local 
celebrity,  whose  absolute  inability  to  pick  out  the  il- 
lustrious authoress  throws  an  amusing  light  upon  the 
relative  standing  and  appearance  of  the  ladies  of  the 
party. 

Escorted,  as  we  gather,  by  the  polite  bookseller  in 
person,  they  were  "  shown  by  the  light  of  a  lanthorn 
along  a  very  narrow  passage  between  high  walls,  to  the 
door  of  a  decent-looking  house,  where  a  maid-servant, 
candle  in  hand,  received  us.  '  Be  pleased,  ladies,  to 
walk  upstairs.'    A  neatish  room,  nothing  extraordinary 


viii.]  BELIND A— YISIT  TO  PARIS  105 

in  it,  except  tlie  inhabitants.  IMrs.  Watts,  a  black-eyed, 
prim,  dragon-looking  woman,  in  the  background.  Miss 
Watts,  a  tall  young  lady  in  white,  fresh  colour,  fair, 
thin  oval  face,  rather  pretty.  The  moment  Mrs. 
Edgeworth  entered.  Miss  Watts,  mistaking  her  for  the 
authoress,  darted  forward  with  arms,  long  thin  arms, 
outstretched  to  their  utmost  SAving,  'Oh,  what  an 
honour  this  is ! '  Each  word  and  syllable  rising  in 
tone  till  the  last  reached  a  scream.  Instead  of  embrac- 
ing my  mother,  as  her  first  action  threatened,  she 
started  back  to  the  furthest  end  of  the  room,  which 
was  not  light  enough  to  show  her  attitude  distinctly, 
but  it  seemed  to  be  intended  to  express  the  receding  of 
awe-struck  admiration  —  stopped  by  the  wall  !  Char- 
lotte and  I  passed  by  unnoticed,  and  seated  ourselves 
by  the  old  lady's  desire.  Miss  Watts  was  all  ecstasy, 
and  lifting  up  of  hands  and  eyes,  speaking  always  in 
that  loud,  shrill,  theatrical  tone  with  which  a  puppet- 
master  supplies  his  puppets.  I,  all  the  time,  sat  like 
a  mouse.  My  father  asked :  '  Which  of  those  ladies. 
Madam,  do  you  think  is  your  authoress ? '  'I  am  no 
physiognomist'  —  in  a  screech — 'but  I  do  imagine 
that  to  be  the  lady,'  bowing  almost  to  the  ground,  and 
pointing  to  Mrs.  Edgeworth.  '  No ;  guess  again.' 
'Then  that  must  be  she,'  bowing  to  Charlotte. 
'  No ! '  '  Then  this  lady,'  looking  forward  to  see 
what  sort  of  an  animal  I  was,  for  she  had  never  seen 
me  till  this  instant.  To  make  me  some  amends,  she 
now  drew  her  chair  close  to  me,  and  began  to  pour 
forth  praises :  '  Lady  Delacour,  0  ! '  '  Letters  for 
Literary  Ladies,  0  ! ' " 

From  this  zealous  but  undiscriminating  admirer  the 
party  withdrew  as  rapidly  as    politeness  permitted ; 


106  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

even  Mr.  Edgeworth  apparently  finding  fame  on  such 
terms  to  be  in  the  succinct  words  of  one  of  his  own 
ancestors  —  "  more  onerous  than  honourable  ! "  A 
"  roomy  coach  "  had  already  been  secured  in  London, 
and  a  few  days  later  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edgeworth,  Maria, 
and  Charlotte  made  their  final  start  for  Paris,  and 
upon  the  fifth  of  October  1802,  found  themselves 
duly  landed  at  Calais. 

From  Calais  the  line  of  route  they  had  selected  lay 
through  Gravelines  and  Brussels.  They  travelled  of 
course  in  their  own  coach,  to  which  were  fastened 
by  long  rope-traces  "  six  Flemish  horses  of  ditferent 
heights,  but  each  large  and  clumsy  enough  to  draw  an 
English  waggon."  "  The  nose  of  the  foremost  horse," 
says  Miss  Edgeworth,  "  was  thirty-five  feet  from  the 
body  of  the  coach,  their  hoofs  all  shaggy,  their  tails 
long  enough  to  please  Sir  Charles  Grandison."  In 
this  fashion  they  rumbled  slowly  on  through  the 
various  towns  and  villages,  seeing  most  of  the  things 
that  were  worth  seeing  on  the  way,  all  of  which  are 
duly  reflected  in  Maria's  lively,  home-bound  letters. 
At  Dunkirk  the  people  struck  her  as  looking  like  so 
many  "  wooden  toys  set  in  motion  by  strings."  Be- 
tween there  and  Bruges  the  roads  impressed  the  whole 
party  by  their  precision,  "  as  if  laid  out  by  some  inflex- 
ible mathematician."  The  post-houses,  on  the  other 
hand,  seem  to  have  scared  the  travellers  by  their  filth 
and  their  air  of  desolation,  suggestive  of  the  sort  of 
places  where  respectable  English  people  might  expect 
to  be  murdered  in.  Bruges  and  Ghent  were  passed, 
and  at  both  places  pictures  and  churches  were  seen,  but 
Miss  Edgeworth  is  fortunately  merciful  to  her  corre- 
spondents in  such  matters  —  "  Do  not  be  afraid,  my 


VIII.]  BELINDA —  YISIT  TO  PARIS  107 

dear  Sophy,"  she  writes  in  one  of  her  letters,  "  that  I 
am  going  to  overwhelm  you  with  pictures."  "It  is 
extremely  agreeable  to  me,"  she  adds  in  the  same 
letter,  "  to  see  paintings  with  those  who  have  excellent 
taste,  and  no  affectation."  It  is  to  be  feared  that  a  good 
deal  of  our  latter-day  discourse  about  the  arts  would 
have  left  so  practical  and  sensible  a  traveller  distinctly 
cold ! 

At  Brussels  a  small  experience  befell  them  which 
gives  us  an  entertaining  glimpse  of  Mr.  Edgeworth's 
educationary  methods,  which  seem  to  have  been  still  in 
full  force.  ''  My  father  thought  that  it  would  be  advan- 
tageous to  us,"  writes  Miss  Edgeworth,  "  to  see  inferior 
pictures  before  seeing  those  of  the  best  masters,  that 
we  might  have  some  points  of  comparison ;  and  upon 
the  same  principle  we  went  to  two  provincial  theatres 
at  Dunkirk  and  Brussels.  But  unluckily — I  mean 
unluckily  for  ouv  principles — we  saw  at  Brussels  two  of 
the  best  Paris  actors,  M.  and  Madame  Talma."  The 
play  was  Racine's  Andromache,  and  the  whole  party 
were  greatly  impressed,  as  they  well  might  be !  At 
Cambray  they  were  taken  to  see  the  preserved  head 
of  Fenelon,  in  honour  of  whom  that  town  had  been 
recently  elevated  by  Buonaparte  into  an  archbishopric. 
At  Chantilly  the  stables  only  were  to  be  seen,  the 
palace  having  been  pulled  down  during  the  Revolution, 
its  "  white  arches  covered  with  crumbling  stones  and 
mortar,  rising  sadly  above  the  ground."  Finally  they 
reached  Paris,  where  rooms  had  been  taken  for  them  in 
"  a  fine  square,  formerly  Place  Louis  Quinze,  afterwards 
Place  de  la  Revolution,  and  now  Place  de  la  Concorde." 
Here  the  guillotine,  barely  ten  years  before,  had  been  at 
work  night  and  day.     Here,  as  they  thrilled  to  realise, 


108  MAKIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

the  King  had  died,  also  Marie  Antoinette,  also  Mme. 
Eoland.  Opposite  their  windows  was  the  Seine,  and 
La  Lanterne  —  in  short,  Paris  —  full,  historic  Paris  — 
lay  around  them. 

Nor  were  their  experiences,  as  is  too  often  the  case, 
limited  to  such  merely  inanimate  objects  of  interest. 
From  the  first  hour  of  their  arrival  they  seem  to  have 
found  themselves  eagerly  welcomed,  and  before  long 
were  in  the  full  swing  of  meeting,  seeing,  and  being 
talked  to,  by  every  one  of  note  or  distinction  who  was 
to  be  found  there  at  the  moment. 

The  letters  descriptive  of  their  Parisian  experiences 
have,  however,  been  already  given  to  the  world  by 
Mr.  Hare  in  the  Life  and  Letters,  so  that,  beyond  a  few 
extracts,  necessary  to  preserve  continuity,  there  is 
no  occasion  to  repeat  them  here.  A  mere  catalogue 
of  the  celebrities  met  with  would  alone  fill  a  consid- 
erable space.  Indeed,  with  a  rather  unlooked-for 
touch  of  humour,  Mrs.  Edgeworth  herself  protests  in 
one  of  her  letters  against  "  Mr.  Edgeworth's  plan  to 
knock  you  down  with  names  ! "  Although  all  the 
members  of  the  party  wrote  home  in  a  more  or  less 
lively  strain,  Maria's  letters  are,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
at  once  the  fullest  and  the  best.  Amongst  a  number  of 
other  eminent  people  we  hear  of  Madame  Delessert, 
and  of  her  daughter,  Madame  Gautier,  who  is  described 
as  having  "  fine,  large,  black  eyes,  well-dressed,  not  at 
all  naked."  '  People,"  Miss  Edgeworth  adds  for  the 
relief  of  the  aunt  to  whom  she  is  writing,  ''  need  not 
be  naked  here  unless  they  choose  it."  It  was  for 
Madame  Gautier  that  Rousseau's  Letters  on  Botany  were 
written,  so  that  we  may  presume  so  respectable  a  taste 
may  have  preserved  her  from  following  the  extremities 


VIII.]  BELINDA  — YISIT  TO  PARIS  109 

of  the  fashion.  Of  their  various  new  acquaintances 
the  person  evidently  who  came  first  in  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  estimation  was  the  Abbe  Morellet  —  "  Oh,  my 
dear  Aunt  Mary,  how  you  would  love  that  man  ! "  she 
cries.  "And  we  need  not  be  afraid  of  loving  him," 
she  adds,  as  a  judicious  afterthought,  ''for  he  is  near 
eighty  ! "  M.  and  Madame  Pastoret,  Madame  Suard, 
and  various  others,  are  passed  in  review,  also  Camille 
Jourdain  —  "  not,"  it  is  explained,  "  the  assassin." 
Madame  Kecamier,  at  whose  house  ''beauty,  riches, 
fashion,  luxury,  and  numbers  "  were  to  be  met  with. 
"  Who  comes  next  ? "  Miss  Edgeworth  exclaims  in 
her  breathless  category.  — "  Kosciusko,  cured  of  his 
wounds,  simple  in  his  manners,  like  all  truly  great 
men.  We  met  him  at  the  house  of  a  Polish  countess 
whose  name  I  cannot  spell." 

It  was  while  she  was  in  the  middle  of  this  letter  that 
the  following  flattering,  if  somewhat  startling,  inter- 
ruption occurred.  "  Here,  my  dear  Aunt "  —  she  is 
writing, as  usual,  to  Mrs.  Ruxton  —  "I  was  interrupted 
in  a  manner  that  will  surprise  you,  as  it  surprised  me, 
by  the  coming  in  of  M.  Edelcrantz,  a  Swedish  gentle- 
man, whom  we  have  mentioned  to  you,  of  superior 
understanding  and  mild  manners.  He  came  to  offer 
me  his  Hand  and  Heart !  My  heart,  you  may  suppose, 
cannot  return  the  attachment,  for  I  have  seen  very 
little  of  him,  and  have  not  had  time  to  have  formed 
any  judgment,  except  that  I  think  nothing  would 
tempt  me  to  leave  my  own  dear  friends,  and  my  own 
country,  to  live  in  Sweden." 

In  her  Memoir  of  her  stepdaughter,  Mrs.  Edgeworth 
insists  that  in  thus  refusing  M.  Edelcrantz,  Maria  was 
"  mistaken  in  her  feelings,"  and  even  goes  so  far  as 


110  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

to  assert  that  she  was  "exceedingly  in  love  with  him." 
Unquestionably  Mrs.  Edgeworth  was  in  a  i^osition  to 
know  the  actual  facts,  yet  I  find  a  certain  amount  of  dif- 
ficulty in  accepting  that  assertion.  To  suppose  that  an 
interview  which  began  and  ended  in  the  manner  above 
described  was  comijatible  with  any  very  deep-seated 
affection  upon  the  part  of  the  recorder  of  it,  would  be 
to  credit  our  impulsive  letter-writer  with  a  good  deal 
more  reticence  and  secretiveness  than  even  the  most 
discreet  of  her  own  heroines  !  That  she  looked  a  trifle 
pensive  when  the  word  "  Sweden  "  was  mentioned,  can 
hardly  be  called  a  conclusive  proof.  In  any  case  there 
is  not  even  a  hint  on  the  part  of  herself,  or  any  of 
her  relations,  that  she  ever  repented  her  refusal,  or 
for  a  moment  regretted  the  decision  she  had  so  un- 
hesitatingly come  to.  In  the  eminently  practical 
language  of  her  stepmother  —  ^'  she  was  well  aware 
that  she  would  not  have  suited  his  position  at  the  Court 
of  Stockholm  "  —  M.  Edelcrantz  seems  to  have  held  the 
post  of  scientific  secretary  to  the  King  of  Sweden  — 
"  and  that  her  want  of  beauty  might  have  diminished 
his  attachment."  The  affair  at  all  events  came  to  a 
summary  conclusion.  M.  Edelcrantz  departed  —  to 
Sweden  or  elsewhere — and  the  only  effect  which  seems 
to  have  followed  from  it  was  that  a  subsequent  story, 
Leonora,  was  written  by  its  author  in  the  style  held  to 
be  particularly  pleasing  to  her  recent  suitor.  Since  it 
is  far  from  being  one  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  happiest 
efforts,  it  is  impossible,  in  the  interests  of  literature, 
to  feel  any  particular  regret  that  his  influence  was  not 
destined  to  be  a  more  enduring  one. 

Next  to  M.  Edelcrantz  —  or  possibly  before  him  in 
importance  —  came  the  personage  still  spoken  of,  even 


Tin.]  ^^L/iVZ).4— VISIT  TO  PARIS  111 

in  Paris,  as  "  Buonaparte."  The  relations  between 
this  personage  and  the  Edgeworths  were  not  without 
touches  of  humour,  although,  in  the  end,  they  came 
remarkably  near  to  having  a  serious,  not  to  say  a  tragic, 
effect  upon  the  latter's  destinies.  The  first  mention  of 
him  is  in  a  letter  which  records  their  having  been  taken 
to  the  theatre  by  Madame  Recamier.  "  We  were  seen," 
says  Mrs.  Edgeworth,  with  an  evident  flutter  of  satis- 
faction, ''  by  Buonaparte  himself,  who  sat  opposite  to 
us  in  a  railed  box,  through  which  he  could  see,  but  not 
be  seen."  We  are  next  informed  that  Mr.  Edgeworth 
was  about  to  be  presented  to  him,  but  the  presentation, 
for  some  reason,  seems  never  to  have  come  off.  Then 
follows  a  letter  from  Charlotte  Edgeworth,  in  which 
her  correspondent  is  told  that  they  went  to  a  review, 
and  that  at  the  review  "we  saw  a  man  on  a  white 
horse  ride  down  the  ranks.  We  saw  that  he  was  a 
little  man  with  a  pale  face,  who  seemed  very  attentive 
to  what  he  was  about,  and  this  was  all  we  saw  of 
'Buonaparte.'"  A  report  that  Mr.  Edgeworth  was 
the  brother  of  the  Abbe  Edgeworth  had  been  circu- 
lated, which  nearly  had  the  effect  of  causing  their 
expulsion  from  Paris  in  the  January  of  1803.  They 
were  able,  however,  to  remain  there  a  few  months 
longer,  and  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  La  Harpe, 
of  Madame  Oudinot  (Rousseau's  Julie),  and  of  other 
notabilities  ;  also  to  call  upon  Madame  de  Genlis  —  a 
visit  which  is  afterwards  described  at  great  length  by 
Maria  in  a  letter  to  her  aunt.  Miss  Sneyd.  Finally 
the  rumours  of  renewed  war  grew  more  and  more 
menacing.  A  friendly  acquaintance,  M.  le  Breton, 
who  happened  to  call  at  their  hotel,  arranged  with 
Mr.  Edgeworth  that    if,  when    they    met    the    same 


112  MARIA   EDGEWORTH  [chap.  viii. 

evening  at  a  friend's  house,  he  found  war  to  be  im- 
minent, he  would  put  on  his  hat.  They  met ;  M.  le 
Breton  suddenly  put  on  his  hat ;  the  hint  was  taken ; 
Mr.  Edgeworth  hurried  back  to  his  hotel ;  the  boxes 
were  packed,  and  they  were  off. 

They  were  only  just  in  time  !  How  narrow  their 
escape  was  is  clear  from  the  fact  that  Lovell  Edge- 
worth,  who  was  on  his  way  from  Geneva  to  join  his 
family  in  Paris,  never  received  the  warning  which  they 
sent  telling  him  not  to  do  so.  He  was  arrested,  and 
from  that  time  forward  for  the  next  twelve  years  he 
remained  a  prisoner  in  France,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts 
of  his  friends,  and  of  all  the  interest  which  the  Edge- 
worth  family  could  command.  Happily  the  members 
of  that  family  who  are  our  own  more  immediate  concern 
escaped,  and  upon  March  the  6th,  1803,  Maria  Edge- 
worth,  with  her  father,  stepmother,  and  sister,  landed 
safely  at  Dover. 


CHAPTER  IX 


MIDDLE    LIFE 


Fkom  this  time  forward  the  stream  of  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  life  seems  to  have  settled  down  into  its  fixed 
and  final  channels.  To  her  readers  the  interest  of  that 
life  is  of  course  mainly  a  literary  one,  but  to  herself 
literature  was  only  one  of  a  dozen  or  more  streams 
or  streamlets  of  interest,  as  has  been  the  case  with 
all  but  a  fraction  of  the  persons  calling  themselves  by 
the  name  of  Author.  The  doings  of  her  own  family  — 
its  joys,  sorrows,  cares,  and  concerns  generally  —  were 
then,  as  always,  the  staple  of  her  preoccupations,  and 
next  to  this  her  various  friendships,  of  which  few 
wielders  of  the  pen  have  ever  had  a  greater  number, 
or  more  satisfactory  ones  than  she  had. 

To  us  to-day  the  most  interesting  of  these  numerous 
friendships  will  always  be  her  friendship  with  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  one  fraught  with  advantage  for  both 
writers,  and  unflecked  by  even  a  passing  cloud. 
Their  personal  acquaintance  did  not  begin  until  Miss 
Edgeworth's  second  visit  to  Edinburgh  in  1823,  for 
although  the  whole  Edgeworth  party  visited  Edin- 
burgh after  their  return  from  Paris  in  1803,  there  is 
no  mention  of  Scott  on  that  occasion,  nor  was  there 
any  particular  reason  why  there  should  be.  As  he 
himself  said  long  afterwards,  in  reply  to  a  remark  of 
I  113 


114  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

Lady  Scott's  on  the  subject  — "Why,  my  dear,  you 
forget  that  Miss  Edgeworth  was  not  a  lion  then,  and 
my  mane,  you  know,  had  not  grown  at  all !  "     When 
the  j&rst  copy  of  Waverley  reached  her  in  October  1814, 
she  wrote  in  a  strain  of  enthusiastic  admiration  to  its 
unknown  and  unnamed  author,  but  headed  her  letter — 
Aut  Scotiis,  aut  diabolus;  even  then  the  acquaintance 
between  them  was  evidently  only  a  paper  one.     The 
precise  date   of   their   meeting   is,  however,  of  little 
importance  compared   to   the  effect   which  they  had 
upon  one  another  as  writers,  and  that  the  pictures  of 
Irish  life  and  character  already  given  to  the  world  by 
INIiss  Edgeworth  had  a  marked  effect  in  determining 
the  direction    of    Scott's    genius,  we    have  his    own 
generous  words  to   prove.     Upon   her   side  —  as  one 
after  the  other  the  miraculous  series  began  to  pour 
forth  —  delight    and    admiration   verged   hard    upon 
idolatry,   or   what   would   have   been   called  by  that 
name  had  it  been  paid  to  almost  any  other  author. 
The  first  book  of  Scott's  which  fell  into  her  hands 
was,  as  was  natural,  a  volume  of  poetry.     Two  years 
after  her   return  from  Paris,  she  chanced  to  be  laid 
up  for  some  time  with  a  rather  serious  illness,  and 
it  was  during  the  convalescence  from  this  illness  that 
The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  was  read  aloud  to  her 
by  one  of  her  sisters;  the  delight  which  it  inspired 
going  far,  so  we  are  told,  towards  contributing  to  her 
recovery. 

It  was  thanks  to  a  remarkably  happy  combination 
of  circumstances  that  this  was  the  case,  for  poetry  — 
qiid  poetry  — had  to  pass  through  an  uncommonly 
dense  and  discouraging  medium  before  it  could  hope 
to  reach  :^^iss  Edgeworth!     Not  many  contemporary 


IX.]  MIDDLE   LIFE  115 

poets  —  not  many  poets  of  any  race,  period,  or  order  of 
composition  —  were  privileged  to  find  favour  at  Edge- 
worthstown.  The  views  of  its  owner  with  regard  to 
the  undesirableness,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  the 
pernicious  effect,  of  that  class  of  literature,  may  be  read 
at  large  in  his  works  on  education,  as  well  as  in  the 
prefaces  with  which  he  so  considerately  adorned  his 
daughter's  books.  Nor  was  it  alone  Poetry,  but  even 
its  more  popular  half-sister,  Romance,  that  was  there 
placed  under  a  ban,  the  result  being  that  it  would  be 
difficult  to  point  to  any  novelist  approaching  the 
calibre  of  Miss  Edgeworth  from  whose  writings  that 
eternal  source  of  joy  has  been  so  carefully,  so  elabo- 
rately excluded.  This  makes  her  devotion  to  the 
greatest  of  all  romancers  only  the  more  interesting, 
and,  moreover,  explains  the  undoubted  fact  that  it 
was  in  this  case  the  greater  of  the  two  contemporary 
writers  who  profited  by  the  example  of  the  lesser 
one,  rather  than  the  other  way.  For  Walter  Scott, 
romance  was  not  so  much  a  possession,  as  a  mere 
piece  of  himself.  As  easily  could  we  conceive  him 
without  eyes,  feet,  or  hands,  as  without  it.  No  master 
of  the  craft,  ancient  or  modern,  no  Homer  of  them  all, 
could  have  helped  him  to  come  one  whit  nearer  to  it. 
"What  he  may  have  gained  —  what  in  all  probability  he 
did  gain  —  from  his  keen-eyed  little  Irish  sister,  was 
a  closer  grip  upon  the  homelier  side  of  reality,  espe- 
cially as  regards  the  ways,  doings,  talk,  look,  clothes, 
and  relations  to  life  generally  of  the  peasant  class,  and 
of  the  class  which  comes  nearest  to  it.  That  Caleb 
Balderston,  Edie  Ochiltree,  and  the  rest,  owed  some- 
thing —  though  it  is  not  very  easy  to  define  what  —  to 
Thady  Quirk,  and  that  to  this  extent  the  obligation  so 


116  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

generously  insisted  upon  was  true,  no  student  of  both 
writers  will,  I  think,  be  disposed  to  question.  Upon 
the  other  hand,  neither  Scott  nor  any  other  magician 
I  —  nothing  in  this  wide  mysterious  world  —  would,  I 
am  bound  to  confess,  have  in  my  opinion  brought  Miss 
Edgeworth  appreciably  nearer  to  that  indefinable,  but 
unmistakable  quality,  which  we  mean  by  the  word 
"  romance."  How  far  her  father's  didactic  counsels 
were  responsible  for  this  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to 
discuss,  seeing  that  over  and  above  his  influence,  she 
had  his  blood,  and  any  one  who  has  had  the  advantage 
of  studying  that  distinguished  moralist's  style  of 
literature,  conversation,  and  correspondence  will  feel 
that,  until  the  last  minim  of  the  fluid  in  question  had 
been  expunged  from  the  veins,  romance  and  all  that 
the  word  conveys,  could  never  hope  to  penetrate ! 

In  the  meantime,  life  continued  to  go  on  at  Edge- 
worthstown  in  the  fashion  that  has  already  become 
tolerably  familiar  to  my  readers.  It  was  an  astonish- 
ingly sociable  fashion,  even  for  so  exceptionally  affec- 
tionate a  family.  Mr.  Edgeworth  had  always  made 
it  his  principle,  we  are  told,  "  to  allow  his  children  to 
participate  in  his  own  occupations,  and  thereby  to 
profit  by  his  example."  Seclusion,  whether  for  the 
pursuit  of  literature,  or  for  any  other  purpose,  was 
naturally  therefore  discouraged.  All  Maria  Edge- 
worth's  books  were  written  at  her  own  corner  of  the 
table  in  the  library  —  which  was  the  common  living 
room  of  the  house  —  amid  the  talk  of  the  family  and 
the  lessons  of  the  children.  Less  sociably  disposed 
authors  may  pity  her  for  such  an  excessive  amount 
of    domesticity,    but    it    is    quite    certain    that    she 


IX.]  MIDDLE  LITE  117 

did  not  pity  lierself.  Whether  a  little  more  solitude 
might  have  suggested  a  trifle  more  belief  in  those 
romantic  and  imaginative  elements  of  existence  — 
oftener  found  in  life  than  in  her  lively  and  instructive 
pages  —  we  cannot  know,  and  need  not  therefore  trouble 
ourselves  to  inquire. 

In  its  more  directly  sentimental  aspect  romance  did, 
as  it  happened,  in  those  days  come  rather  near  to 
Edgeworthstown,  though  in  connection  with,  perhaps, 
the  least  sentimental  of  all  the  greater  heroes,  even  of 
English  history.  The  reader  will  remember  that  the 
Longfords  of  Pakenham  Hall  were  amongst  the  nearest 
neighbours  of  the  Edgeworths,  and  the  engagement, 
in  the  spring  of  1806,  of  a  daughter  of  that  house  — 
"Sweet  Kitty  Pakenham"  —  to  that  hero  of  heroes. 
Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  was  a  source  of  intense  excite- 
ment to  their  friends  on  the  other  side  of  the  rather 
ugly  piece  of  level  country  which  divided  the  two 
hoiTses.  So  engrossed  were  they  by  it  that  we  hear 
that  —  "waking  or  sleeping,  the  image  of  Miss  Paken- 
ham swims  before  our  eyes."  "  To  make  the  romance 
perfect,"  writes  Miss  Edgeworth,  "we  want  two 
material  documents :  a  description  of  the  person  of 
Sir  Arthur,  and  an  exact  knowledge  of  the  time  when 
the  interview  after  his  return  took  place."  As  regards 
the  first  of  these  romantic  documents  their  curiosity  is 
soon  set  at  rest,  by  their  learning  from  an  informant 
that  the  hero  is  "handsome,  very  brown,  quite 
bald,  and  a  hooked  nose."  Even  royalty  seems  to 
have  shared  in  the  desire  for  minute  information  with 
regard  to  this  interesting  couple,  since  we  are  told  that 
when  Lady  Wellesley  was  presented  at  Court  upon  her 
marriage,  the  Queen,  after  various  compliments  upon 


118  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

SO  "  shining  "  an  example  of  constancy,  added  —  "  But 
did  you  never  write  one  letter  to  Sir  Arthur  during 
his  long  absence  ?  "  "  No,  never.  Madam."  "  And 
did  you  never  think  of  him  ?  "  "  Yes,  Madam,  very 
often."  Miss  Edgeworth  —  in  one  of  whose  letters  this 
valuable  fragment  of  dialogue  occurs  —  glows  over  the 
excellent  effect  likely  to  accrue  from  so  much  interest 
in  this  same  "  shining  "  quality,  exhibited  in  such  an 
illustrious  sphere ! 

In  1807  there  was  again  serious  trouble  at  Edge- 
worthstown  owing  to  the  family  scourge  of  consump- 
tion. This  time  it  was  Charlotte,  the  sister  who  had , 
shared  in  all  the  pleasures  and  perils  of  the  visit  to 
Paris,  who  was  stricken  with  it.  The  "  State  of  the 
Country  " — that  most  familiar  of  Irish  grievances — was 
also  again  making  itself  felt.  In  Mrs.  Edgeworth's 
Memoir  we  read  that  — "  in  the  midst  of  our  anxiety 
for  Charlotte,  we  were  disturbed  by  large  parties  of 
men  who  went  about  attacking  houses  and  seizing 
arms.  They  called  themselves  '  Thrashers,'  and  we 
were  roused  one  night  by  the  sergeant  of  the  yeomanry 
corps,  with  the  intelligence,  that  the  Thrashers  were 
close  to  the  town  in  great  numbers.  Lord  Longford's 
agent,  Mr.  Eennie,  when  he  was  called  up  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  very  naturally  said  this  was  a 
strange  country,  where  a  man  could  not  sleep  one 
night  in  peace !  The  Thrashers  did  not,  however, 
come  to  this  house,  and  except  having  the  windows 
barricaded  for  some  time,  and  the  yeomanry  on  guard, 
we  had  no  further  disturbance  from  them,  but  these 
alarms,  and  our  anxiety  for  Charlotte,  made  this  a 
melancholy  spring.  Her  increasing  illness  occupied  all 
our  thoughts,  and  although  for  months  we  knew  how 


IX.]  MIDDLE  LIFE  119 

it  must  end,  the  blow  overwhelmed  us  when  it  came. 
She  died  the  seventh  of  April,  1807." 

This  evidently  was  at  the  time  a  very  crushing  sor- 
row, especially  to  Maria,  whose  affection  for  her  own 
family  was  of  that  absorbing  type,  less  common  than 
admirers  of  the  domestic  virtues  would  have  us  to 
believe.  Next  to  her  father  —  with  regard  to  whom 
admiration  reached  a  point  difficult  for  any  ordinary 
biographer  to  follow — the  nearest  to  Miss  Edgeworth's 
heart  seem  at  this  time  to  have  been  this  sister  Charlotte 
and  her  brother  Henry,  no  longer  the  "  Little  Henry  " 
of  earlier  days,  but  a  promising  young  medical  student, 
walking  the  hospitals  m  Edinburgh,  and  on  the  road  to 
a  successful  career,  one  which  unhappily  was  cut  short 
by  the  same  scourge  which  had  already  so  devastated 
the  family.  In  the  letters  written  to  this  brother. 
Miss  Edgeworth  is  at  her  very  best.  They  are  full, 
not  alone  of  family  details,  over  the  reiteration  of  which 
monotony  becomes  inevitable,  but  of  a  variety  of  other 
subjects,  such  as  she  considered  likely  to  be  of  interest 
to  him.  Space  will  not  permit  here  of  more  than  the 
briefest  of  extracts,  despite  the  fact  that  several  of 
these  letters  are  still  unpublished.  After  her  first  visit 
to  Edinburgh,  Henry  wrote  to  tell  her  of  the  various 
Scotch  notabilities,  including  the  Lord  Buchan  of  that 
day,  who  had  been  eager  to  see  his  distinguished 
sister.  — 

"  I  am  really  very  sorry,"  she  writes  in  reply,  "  that 
poor  Lord  Buchan  rose  from  his  sick-bed  to  see  what 
was  so  little  worth  seeing.  I  wish  I  had  known  at  the 
time  how  much  I  ought  to  have  been  flattered,  and  I 
would  have  conducted  myself  with  becoming  propriety. 
I  hope  he  will  never  do  so  any  more.    If  he  will  come 


120  MAEIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

here,  and  if  I  have  the  headache,  I  will  get  up  to 
receive  him:  —  mortal  woman  cannot  do  more!  —  Yes, 
if  I  were  Madame  Recamier,  with  her  pretty  bed,  etc., 
etc.,  I  would  receive  him  in  my  bed-chamber,  but  at 
present  Fanny's  bed,  as  you  very  well  know,  would 
prevent  that ! " 

In  another  letter,  of  about  the  same  date,  she 
promises  to  pay  all  possible  attentions  to  a  certain 
"  Zoonomia  Brown's  brother  "  in  whom  Henry  Edge- 
worth  had  expressed  an  interest:  "People  of  the  liter- 
ary corps  are,  I  think,  bound  to  be  kind  to  one  another 
in  all  parts  of  the  world ;  and  we,  who  have  received 
so  much  advantage  from  this  species  of  freemasonry, 
certainly  should  not  neglect  the  return  of  good  for 
good."  "  Upon  my  word,"  she  exclaims  in  a  third  letter, 
"  it  is  a  fine  thing  to  be  an  Edinburgh  Eeviewer !  Two 
hundred  pounds  a  year  and  ten  guineas  a  sheet !  Poor 
authors  must  hide  their  diminished  heads  !  But  it  is 
always  better  diversion  to  tear,  than  to  be  torn  in 
pieces.  I  should  not  however  like  to  be  one  of  the 
tearers,  except  it  was  the  person  who  wrote  the  review 
'  Dumont  and  Bentham.'  I  envy  that  man,  whoever 
he  is,  but  you  will  never  tell  me  who  he  is.  I  assure 
you  my  envy  would  not  prompt  me  to  murder  him  !  " 
''What  book  do  you  think  Buonaparte  was  reading 
at  the  siege  of  Acre  ? "  she  asks  soon  afterwards. 
"Madame  de  Stael's  Sur  I'mfluence  des  Passions! 
His  opinion  of  her  and  of  her  works  has  wonderfully 
changed  since  then.  He  does  not  follow  Mazarin's  wise 
maxim,  'Let  them  talk,  provided  they  let  me  act.'  He 
may  yet  find  the  recoil  of  that  press,  with  which  he 
meddles  so  incautiously,  more  dangerous  than  those 
cannon,  of  which  he  well  knows  the  management." 


IX.]  MIDDLE   LIFE  121 

These  extracts  must  suffice,  nor  do  any  further  events 
of  very  vital  interest  seem  to  have  occurred  during  the 
ten  years  that  elapsed  between  the  return  of  the  Edge- 
worths  from  Paris  in  1803  and  their  visit  to  London  in 
the  year  1813.  A  variety  of  details  is  recorded  in  the 
course  of  them  with  regard  to  Mr.  Edgeworth's  tele- 
graphic inventions.  Also  about  his  patent  "wheel 
carriages,"  a  subject  upon  which  Maria  was  commanded, 
we  learn,  to  write  a  long  essay  at  his  dictation.  "  The 
subject  being  actually  before  a  Committee  of  the  House 
of  Commons,"  she  tells  her  cousin  Sophy  Kuxton, 
"  and  Mr.  Cummins  and  all  the  great  engineers  and 
all  the  great  waggoners  disputing,  '  a  outrance '  and 
'a  gorge  deployee,'  about  the  comparative  merits  of 
cylindrical  and  conical  wheels.  So  my  father,  being 
appealed  to,  was  desirous  to  state  the  merits  of  the  said 
wheels  impartially,  and  he  dictated  to  me,  as  he  walked 
up  and  down  the  library  for  two  hours,  nine  pages  : 
and  the  nine  pages  had  to  be  copied,  and  nine  and  nine 
you  are  sensible  make  eighteen,  and  it  was  the  day  I 
wrote  those  eighteen  pages  that  I  contrived  to  scrawl 
that  letter  to  my  aunt  about  Jack  Langan." 

Devoted  daughter,  and  hardly  less  devoted  niece  ! 
A  year  later  the  thrilling  subject  of  the  moment 
is  a  church  spire,  specially  invented  and  constructed 
by  Mr.  Edgeworth,  for  the  embellishment  of  their 
parish  church,  the  most  striking  peculiarity  of  which 
seems  to  have  been  that  it  was  able  to  rise  from 
the  ground  at  the  sound  of  a  bugle,  played  by  some 
member  of  the  Edgeworth  family,  and  to  take  its  place, 
when  requested  to  do  so,  upon  the  church  tower !  — 
"  Walk  with  me  to  the  spire,"  Miss  Edgeworth  writes 
to  her  aunt,  "  and  see  William  standing  on  the  scaffold- 


122  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

ing  round  the  top  of  the  church  tower,  which  looks 
like  the  manned  mast  of  a  man-of-war.  He  gives 
the  signal,  and  the  four  men  at  the  corner  capstans 
work  the  windlasses,  and  in  a  few  moments,  with  a  slow, 
majestic  motion,  the  spire  begins  to  ascend.  Its  gilt 
ball  and  arrow  glitter  higher  and  higher  in  the  sun, 
and  its  iron  skeleton  rises  by  beautiful  degrees,  till,  in 
twelve  minutes  and  a  half,  its  whole  transparent  form 
is  high  in  air,  and  stands  composed  and  sublime  in  its 
destined  situation." 

No  wonder  that  the  family  were  proud  !  From  Mrs. 
Edgeworth's  Memoir  of  her  stepdaughter  we  learn  that 
at  about  the  same  date  — ''  Mr.  Edgeworth  made  an 
addition  to  Maria's  very  small  room,  adding  a  project- 
ing window,  which  gives  a  few  feet  in  space,  with  great 
additional  light  and  cheerfulness,  and  much  did  she 
enjoy  its  advantages,  and  still  more  her  father's  kind- 
ness." Here  the  historian  is  divided  between  envy  for 
a  daughter  who  possessed  so  attentive  a  father,  and 
for  a  father  who  was  able  to  awaken  such  eager  demon- 
stration of  gratitude  upon  such  slender  provocations ! 
That  he  occasionally  bemoaned  the  multiplicity  of 
his  daughter's  domestic  duties  is  also  ascertainable, 
not  without  satisfaction,  from  another  letter :  —  "I  have 
been  wondrous  busy  packing  books  to  be  bound,"  she 
says,  in  one  written  about  this  date,  "  and  have  lived 
upon  the  ladder,  my  father  deploring  the  waste  of  time 
and  the  fatigue  I  underwent.  And  now  the  shelves, 
books  and  all,  are  in  the  most  distinguished  order ! " 

In  the  year  1812  the  family  are  again  excited  over 
a  marriage,  that  of  their  friend  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  to 
Mrs.  Apreece,  a  society  personage  of  some  note,  and 


IX.]  MIDDLE  LIFE  123 

a  giver  of  good  dinners.  The  wits  had  amused  them- 
selves over  this  engagement,  and  much  doggerel  had 
been  perpetrated,  amongst  which  the  following  is 
perhaps  the  least  bad  — 

"  To  the  famed  widow  vainly  bow 
Church,  Army,  Bar,  aud  Navy, 
Says  she,  '  I  dare  not  take  a  vow, 
But  I  will  take  my  Davy.'  " 

This  brings  us  to  1813,  in  which  year  Mr.,  Mrs., 
and  Miss  Edgeworth  went  to  England,  and,  after  a  few 
preliminary  visits,  arrived  in  London  towards  the 
end  of  April.  It  was  the  first  stay  of  any  length  that 
Maria  had  made  there,  and  the  enthusiasm  which  her 
appearance  aroused  is  something  so  foreign  to  our  less 
impressionable,  or  possibly  less  literary,  ways,  that  it 
would  be  difficult  to  credit  it,  but  for  the  number  and 
unimpeachableness  of  the  witnesses  upon  the  subject. 
In  a  note  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  for  instance, 
written  in  the  month  of  May  1813,  we  find  the  fol- 
lowing account:  — 

"  Mr.,  Mrs.,  and  Miss  Edgeworth  have  just  come  over  from 
Ireland.  I  passed  some  hours  with  them  yesterday  forenoon, 
under  pretence  of  visiting  the  new  Mint,  which  was  a  great 
object  to  them,  as  they  are  all  j^roficients  in  mechanics.  Miss 
Edgeworth  is  a  singularly  agreeable  person,  very  natural, 
clever,  and  well-informed,  without  the  least  pretensions  of 
authorship.  She  has  never  been  in  a  large  society  before,  and 
she  was  followed  and  courted  by  all  persons  of  distinction  in 
London  with  an  avidity  that  was  almost  without  example." 

Byron,  in  an  entry  of  his  diary  written  a  few  years 
later,  recalls  his  meeting  with,  and  his  impressions  of, 
the  whole  Edgeworth  party.  He  met  them,  he  tells  us 
—  "  first  at  a  breakfast  of  Sir  Humphry  and  Lady  Davy, 


124  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

to  which  I  was  invited  for  the  nouce."  "  I  had  been," 
he  goes  on  to  remark,  "  the  lion  of  1812,  Miss  Edge- 
worth  and  Madame  de  Stael  —  with  the  '  Cossack '  to- 
wards the  end  of  1813  —  were  the  exhibitions  of  the 
succeeding  year."  Of  Mr.  Edgeworth  his  report  begins 
more  favourably  than  it  concludes.  —  "I  thought  Edge- 
worth  a  fine  old  fellow,  of  a  clarety,  elderly,  red  com- 
plexion, but  active,  brisk,  and  endless.  He  was  seventy, 
but  did  not  look  fifty."  Half  a  page  later  this  is 
followed  by  a  less  flattering  notice:  ^'The  fact  was, 
every  one  cared  more  about  her.  She  was  a  nice 
unassuming  '  Jeanie-Deans  '-looking  body  —  and,  if  not 
handsome,  certainly  not  ill-looking.  Her  conversation 
was  as  quiet  as  herself ;  no  one  would  have  guessed  she 
could  write  her  name.  Whereas  her  father  talked,  not 
as  if  he  could  write  nothing  else,  but  as  if  nothing  else 
were  worth  writing." 

Hardly  less  lively  is  the  account  of  the  same  party 
to  be  found  in  a  letter  of  Joanna  Baillie  to  Sir  Walter 
Scott :  — 

"  If  you  would  give  a  silver  sixpence,  as  you  say,  to  see  us 
together,  each  of  us  would,  I  am  sure,  have  given  a  silver 
crown  (no  small  part,  now,  of  the  real  cash  contained  in  any- 
body's purse)  to  have  seen  you  a  third  in  our  party.  I  have 
found  Miss  Edgeworth  a  frank,  animated,  sensible,  and 
amusing  woman,  entirely  free  from  affectation  of  any  kind, 
and  of  a  confiding  and  affectionate,  and  friendly  disposition 
that  has  gained  upon  my  heart.  We  met  a  good  many  times, 
and  when  we  parted  she  was  iu  tears,  like  one  who  takes  leave 
of  an  old  friend.  She  has  been  received  by  everybody,  the 
first  in  literature  and  the  first  in  rank,  with  the  most  gratify- 
ing eagerness  and  respect,  and  has  delighted  them  all.  She 
is  cheerful,  and  talks  easily  and  fluently,  and  tells  her  little 
story  (when  her  father  did  not  take  it  out  of  her  mouth) 
very  pleasantly.    However,  in  regard  to  her  father,  she  is  not 


IX.]  MIDDLE   LIFE  125 

so  much  hampered  as  she  must  have  been  in  Edinburgh, 
where  I  was  told  she  could  not  get  leave  to  speak  to  anybody, 
and  therefore  kept  in  the  background  wherever  she  went. 
When  they  take  up  the  same  thing  now  they  have  a  fair 
wrangle  (tho'  a  good-humoured  one)  for  it,  and  she  as  often 
gets  the  better  as  he.  He  is,  to  be  sure,  a  strange  mortal, 
with  no  great  '  tact,'  and  some  conceit.  Yet  his  daughter  is 
so  strongly  attached  to  him  that  I  am  sure  he  must  have 
some  good  in  him ;  and,  convinced  of  this,  I  have  taken  a 
good  will  to  him  in  spite  of  fashion.  You  would  have  been 
amused  if  you  had  seen  with  what  eagerness  people  crowded 
to  get  a  sight  of  Miss  Edgeworth  —  who  is  very  short  — 
peeping  over  shoulders  and  between  curled  tetes  to  get  but 
one  look.  She  said  herseK,  at  a  i^arty  where  I  met  her,  that 
the  crowd  closed  over  her." 

If  she  said  so,  it  was,  we  may  be  sure,  in  no  bragging 
spirit  !  Never  lion  or  lioness  took  his  or  her  social 
glory  more  completely  at  its  proper  value  than  did 
Maria  Edgeworth.  From  her  own  letters  written  at 
this  time,  it  would  puzzle  any  one  to  extract  a  word  with 
regard  to  this  excitement  over  herself,  about  which 
the  letters  of  her  contemporaries  almost  audibly  buzz. 
She  tells  the  correspondents  left  behind  in  Ireland  a 
good  deal  about  Mr.  Edgeworth's  success  as  one  of 
the  speakers  at  a  meeting  of  the  Lancastrian  schools, 
where  his  speech  was  "  the  next  best  to  Lord  Lans- 
downe's."  Also  abovit  the  inevitable  "  wheel  carriages," 
and  about  the  regrets  of  the  whole  party  at  missing 
both  Madame  D'Arblay  and  Madame  de  Stael,  but 
of  her  own  literary  and  social  triumphs  not  a  word. 
That  she  enjoyed  everything  to  the  full ;  that  she 
came  and  went ;  laughed,  talked,  breakfasted,  dined, 
supped ;  listened,  and  was  listened  to,  all  alike  with 
zest  and  entertainment,  is  at  least  clear.  Dull  would 
be  the  biographer  who  failed  to  feel  a  certain  reflected 


126  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap.  ix. 

glow  over  the  thought  of  such  enjoyment !  Not  the 
least  regrettable  amongst  the  world's  many  mischances 
is  the  failure  of  those  in  whom  we  take  an  interest 
to  enjoy  —  or  to  have  enjoyed  —  that  meed  of  praise 
and  admiration,  not  alone  their  due,  but  which  the 
world  was  actually  ready  and  eager  to  offer  them. 
Who  can  read,  for  instance,  without  a  pang  of  how, 
day  after  day,  and  for  many  weary  months,  Charlotte 
Bronte  sat  alone  in  melancholy  Haworth  —  her  sisters 
dead,  her  father  preferring  his  own  company,  herself 
eating  her  poor  meals  uncheered  by  even  the  compan- 
ionship of  that  least  sympathetic  of  parents  —  while 
all  the  time,  not  very  far  away,  fame,  friends,  admira- 
tion, sympathy,  were  waiting  for  her  to  come  and  to 
accept  them  ?  Let  us  rate  all  such  opportunities  as 
low  as  ever  we  like,  still,  when  we  have  proved  our 
superiority  by  rating  them  at  the  lowest  possible 
point,  something  remains ;  something  which,  while 
the  world  spins,  and  man  continues  to  be  the  arbiter 
—  in  such  matters  the  sole  arbiter  —  of  his  fellow-man, 
can  never  be  without  some  value. 


CHAPTER  X 

ENNUI—  TEE  ABSENTEE—  ORMOND 

What  is  likely  to  be  the  final  position  of  Miss  Edge- 
worth  as  a  writer,  especially  as  a  writer  of  Irish  books  ? 
That  is  a  question  which  sooner  or  later  must  confront 
her  biographers ;  it  appears  to  be  high  time,  therefore, 
to  enter  a  little  more  fully  into  an  account  of  those 
three  books  of  hers  which  are,  after  Castle  Rackrent  — 
in  my  judgment  some  way  after  it  —  her  chief  contri- 
butions to  literature,  and  her  chief  claim  consequently 
to  an  abiding  position  as  author. 

It  happens  that  the  words  "Irish  books,"  "Irish 
writers,"  are  just  now  surrounded  by  a  certain  amount 
of  ambiguity.  It  seems  safer,  therefore,  to  explain 
that  by  the  latter  phrase  is  meant  in  the  present 
instance  writers  of  Irish  nationality  who  have  written 
in  the  English  language.  To  discuss  at  large,  and 
with  becoming  seriousness,  whether  that  language  is 
or  is  not  likely  to  be  the  one  in  which  the  genius  of 
Ireland  will  in  future  reveal  itself,  would  be  irrelevant, 
and  possibly  disputatious.  Looking  at  the  matter 
then  solely  from  an  English-speaking  point  of  view, 
I  find  myself  confronted  by  another  and  a  larger 
problem,  the  problem  of  how  it  happens  that  the 
literature  of  a  country,  whose  sons  and  daughters  are 
notoriously  keen-witted  and  imaginative,  should  still 

127 


128  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

be  comparatively  so  meagre  ?  To  find  a  satisfactory- 
answer  to  that  problem,  as  to  most  of  those  pro- 
pounded to  us  by  the  scornful  Sphinx,  would  take  some 
time,  since,  before  even  beginning  upon  it,  it  would 
be  necessary  that  the  ground  should  be  first  cleared 
by  a  good  deal  of  preliminary  investigation.  Swift, 
Burke,  Sheridan,  Goldsmith  —  to  take  the  eighteenth 
century  only  —  are  a  quartette  of  names  of  which  any 
literature  in  the  world  might  be  proud.  With  the 
partial  exception  of  the  first-named  it  happens  that 
only  the  smallest  portion  of  the  writings  of  any  of  these 
four  have  any  marked  connection  with  Ireland,  con- 
sequently that  peculiar  and  very  endearing  link,  which 
usually  more  or  less  unites  a  writer  with  the  soil  from 
which  he  springs,  is  in  all  four  cases  regrettably  absent. 
Why  it  is  so,  and  how  it  has  chanced,  that,  save  in  a 
few  instances,  Ireland  herself  has  had  so  little  of  the 
attention  of  her  best  sons,  is  another  question,  or 
another  branch  of  the  same  question.  Considerations 
of  geography,  of  history,  of  religion,  all  are  entangled 
in  it ;  the  relations  of  two  conflicting,  and  not  very 
sympathetic  races,  and  the  further  consideration  of 
how  far  one  such  race  may  have  a  stunting  and  a  de- 
teriorating influence  upon  another  —  these,  and  various 
other  points,  would  have  to  be  gone  over  and  debated, 
more  or  less  in  detail. 

Want  of  space  —  as  well  as  other  considerations  — 
forbid  the  interpolation  of  any  similar  discussions 
at  the  present  moment.  Turning  back  to  the  more 
immediate  matter  in  hand,  I  find  that  before  enter- 
ing upon  an  examination  of  the  three  books  whose 
names  stand  at  the  head  of  this  chapter,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  bestow  a  certain  amount  of  attention  upon 


X.]         ENNUI— THE  ABSENTEE— OBMOND         129 

one  or  two  earlier  books  of  Miss  Edgeworth,  which 
have  been  somewhat  unceremoniously  passed  over. 
Of  these,  the  Moral  Tales  was  published  as  far  back  as 
the  year  1801,  and  was  heralded  and  introduced  to  the 
world  by  a  preface  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Edgeworth, 
one  in  which  the  obvious  is  explained,  and  the  evident 
is  made  clear,  with  all  his  usual  elaborate  and  pitiless 
exactitude.  As  regards  the  book  itself,  all  that  one 
can  say  of  it  is  that  it  is  as  little  dull  as  any  work  of 
fiction  can  hope  to  be  of  which  edification  is  the  main, 
it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,  the  sole  reason  for  its  ex- 
istence. Personally,  my  favourite  amongst  the  stories 
it  contains  is  "  Angelina,  or  Taniie  inconnue,"  a  tale 
which  relates,  with  many  sparks  of  humour,  the  adven- 
tures of  a  sentimental  young  lady  in  pursuit  of  an 
unknown  friend  and  correspondent,  whom  she  goes 
forth  to  seek  in  a  romantic  situation  amid  the  mountains 
of  North  Wales,  but  unhappily  discovers  at  Bristol,  and 
in  a  condition  of  —  semi-intoxication !  The  other  stories 
seem  to  me  to  be  most  of  them  upon  a  duller  plane, 
and  the  chief  impression  produced  by  a  re-perusal  of 
them  is  one  of  no  little  perplexity  that  a  pen  which 
had  only  just  left  off  from  writing  Castle  Rackrent 
should  have  been  able  to  turn  —  to  all  appearances 
with  equal  satisfaction  —  to  the  production  of  Forester, 
or  of  The  Prussian  Vase. 

After  the  "Moral"  came  the  "Popular"  tales,  which 
are  even  more  obviously  and  avowedly  educational. 
"The  Young,"  "The  Middle  Classes,"  "The  Aristoc- 
racy," appears  to  have  been  the  primitive  form  of  clas- 
sification adopted,  and  to  each  of  these  three  classes 
a  certain  number  of  fables,  each  with  their  due  admix- 
ture of  morals,  had  to  be  directed.    As  regards  the  tales 


130  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

themselves,  they  are  at  once  so  simple,  and  so  well 
known,  that  elaborate  analysis  would  in  their  case  be 
the  merest  superfluity.  Whenever  Ireland,  or  even  a 
wandering  Irishman,  steps  upon  the  stage  —  as  in  The 
Limerick  Gloves  —  they  seem  to  me  at  once  to  gain  in 
vigour  and  actuality  — but  that  may  be  pure  prejudice  ! 
In  any  case,  I  fail  to  see  any  adequate  reason  for  delay- 
ing over  their  contemplation,  and  therefore  pass  on  to 
the  Fashionable  Tales,  the  first  series  of  which  was 
begun  not  long  after  the  return  of  Miss  Edgeworth 
from  Paris,  namely,  in  the  summer  of  the  year  1803. 
This  series  contained  as  its  longest  story  Ennui, 
which  being  in  the  main  Irish,  I  have  set  aside  to  dis- 
cuss separately.  The  rest  of  the  volumes  were  filled 
in  the  first  edition  by  the  four  following  tales  —  The 
Dun,  Manoeuvring,  Mme.  de  Fleury,  and  Almeria.  Here 
again  the  impression  conveyed  is  that  they  are,  from 
a  literary  point  of  view,  so  emphatically  below  Miss 
Edgeworth  at  her  best,  that  they  may  safely  be  left 
to  be  summarised  in  the  words  of  the  parental  preface. 
From  that  conscientious  editorial  summary  we  learn 
that  Tlie  Dun  is  intended  by  its  author  to  be — ''a  lesson 
against  the  common  folly  of  believing  that  a  debtor  is 
able  by  a  few  cant  phrases  to  alter  the  nature  of  right 
and  wrong."  Manoeuvring  is  —  "a  vice  to  which  the 
little  great  have  recourse  to  show  their  second-rate 
abilities " ;  while  in  Almeria  the  author,  we  are 
assured,  proposes  to  give  us  —  "a  view  of  the  con- 
sequences which  usually  follow  the  substitution  of  the 
gifts  of  fortune  in  the  place  of  merit,  and  shows  the 
meanness  of  those  who  imitate  manners  and  haunt 
company  above  their  station  in  society."  "  Difference 
of  rank,"  Mr.  Edgeworth  continues  impressively,  "  is  a 


X.]         ENNUI— THE  ABSENTEE—OBMOND         131 

continual  incitement  to  laudable  emulation ;  but  those 
■who  consider  the  being  admitted  into  circles  of  fashion 
as  the  summit  of  human  bliss  and  elevation,  will  here 
find  how  grievously  such  frivolous  ambition  may  be 
disappointed  and  chastised." 

After  so  judicious  and  so  thoroughly  exhaustive  a 
summary  as  this,  the  reader  will  perhaps  hardly  feel  that 
it  is  requisite  for  his  peace  of  mind  to  know  very  much 
more  !  It  is  only  common  justice  to  Miss  Edgeworth, 
however,  to  add  that  the  tales  are  one  and  all  of  them 
written  with  that  liveliness  and  vigour  which  rarely, 
even  at  the  worst,  forsook  her  pen.  There  is  one 
scene  especially,  towards  the  end  of  Almeria,  —  the 
scene  in  which  a  wealthy  and  fashionable  "  Miss " 
(Almeria  herself)  encounters  a  high-minded  but 
unfashionable  duchess  —  which  has  always  seemed  to 
the  present  writer  to  promise  a  large  amount  of  en- 
tertainment to  its  readers.  Unhappily,  the  desire  to 
chastise  the  poor  votary  of  fashion,  in  accordance  with 
the  spirit  of  the  preface,  has  proved  too  strong  for 
the  natural  humours  of  the  situation.  The  rich,  but 
reprehensibly  fashionable,  "  Miss  "  retires  abashed  and 
humiliated  —  although  in  her  own  coach  —  leaving  all 
the  honours  of  war  to  the  high-minded  but  unfashion- 
able duchess,  who  departs  shortly  afterwards  in  tri- 
umph —  apparently  upon  her  feet ! 

The  second  set  of  the  Fashionable  Tales  finally 
included  The  Absentee,  which  is,  next  to  Castle  Rackrent, 
the  best  story,  in  the  opinion  of  most  critics,  that 
Miss  Edgeworth  ever  wrote.  Its  inclusion  was,  as 
will  shortly  be  seen,  of  the  nature  of  an  afterthought, 
the  series,  as  originally  projected,  having  been  almost 
exclusively  English.     As  regards  two  of  the  stories 


132  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

contained  in  it  —  Vivian  and  The  Modern  Griselda  — 
I  do  not  find  it  easy  to  discover  anything  very 
favourable  to  say.  This  applies  more  especially  to 
Vivia7i,  a  painfully  ponderous  tale,  the  moral  of  which 
turns  upon  the  disadvantage  under  which  a  hero 
labours  who  is  incapable  under  any  circumstances  of 
saying  "No."  The  third  of  these  shorter  stories  — 
Emilie  de  Coidanges  —  stands  upon  a  very  different 
level,  and  is  perhaps  the  best  non-Irish  story  that  its 
author  ever  penned.  The  heroine,  it  is  true,  is  of  the 
usual  flawless  type,  as  is  also  apparently  the  hero,  who 
only  appears  in  a  somewhat  unconvincing  fashion  at 
the  last  moment.     On  the  other  hand,  the  two  mothers 

—  his  and  ^milie's  —  are  a  pair  of  admirably  conceived 
contrasts.  The  volatile  Countess  —  unsobered  even 
under  the  very  shadow  of  the  guillotine  —  is  as  lifelike 
a  creation  as  has  ever  fluttered  through  the  pages  of 
a  novel,  while  Mrs.  Somers  —  hospitable,  strenuous, 
well-meaning,  generous,  the  possessor  of  many  virtues 
and  of  one  failing  — huffiness  — is  a  person  with  whom 
most  of  us  have  at  one  time  or  other  made  acquaint- 
ance. While  fully  admitting  the  good  points  of  this 
and  several  of  the  other  shorter  stories,  I  still  find  it 
difficult  to  believe  that  any  devout  reader  of  Miss 
Edgeworth  can  fail  to  regret  that  she  should  have 
expended  so  much  of  her  time  upon  what  was  for  her 

—  I  will  not  assert  for  evei-y  one  —  distinctly  the  wrong 
side  of  the  Channel.  I  therefore  pass  on  to  those 
three  books  of  hers  which  are  more  particularly  the 
objects  of  my  own  interest,  and  proceed  now  to 
examine  them  a  little  in  detail. 

Taking  them,  not  chronologically,  but  in  their  order 
of  merit,  the  first  place  will  be  almost  universally 


X.]         ENNUI— THE  ABSENTEE— OBMOND         133 

assigned  to  Tlie  Absentee.  While  personally  ranking  it, 
as  I  have  said,  considerably  below  its  forerunner  Castle 
Rackrent,  it  is  impossible  for  any  critic  to  fail  to  realise 
that  it  is  in  truth  an  excellent  tale,  full  of  wit  and 
humour,  full  of  point,  pith,  and  knowledge  of  the 
world,  of  nearly,  in  short,  though  not  perhaps  of  all, 
the  qualities  which  go  towards  the  production  of  that 
as  yet  unrealised  desideratum  — the  ideal  novel.  Every 
one,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  has  read  or  heard  of  Lord 
Macaulay's  solemn  declaration  that  the  scene  in  which 
Lord  Colambre  discovers  himself  to  his  father's  tenants, 
and  discomfits  the  demon  agent,  has  had  no  parallel  in 
literature  since  the  opening  of  the  twenty-second  book 
of  the  Odyssey !  Humbler  admirers  might  hardly  per- 
haps have  risen  unaided  to  quite  such  lofty  heights  of 
panegyric  as  these.  Still,  when  the  vast,  the  almost 
immeasurable  difference,  between  a  new  and  a  merely 
old  novel  has  been  discounted,  the  result  can  hardly 
fail  to  redound  to  the  permanent  distinction  of  its 
author. 

The  fashion  in  which  the  book  originated  has  a 
certain  interest  in  itself,  and  shows  that  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  like  most  people  who  have  ever  written  novels, 
had  now  and  then  turned  an  eye  to  the  more  immediate 
profits  and  glories  of  the  stage.  She  never  actually 
attained  those  glories ;  indeed  in  this,  as  in  most  other 
respects,  she  took  an  unusually  clear,  no  less  than  an 
unusually  modest,  view  of  her  own  capacities.  The 
first  mention  of  The  Absentee  will  be  found  in  a  letter 
to  her  unfailing  correspondent,  Mrs.  Ruxton :  —  "I 
have  written  a  little  play  for  our  present  large  juvenile 
audience," — this  was  written  in  November  1811  ■ —  "  not 
for  them  to  act,  but  to  hear.     I  read  it  out  last  night, 


134  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

and  it  was  liked.  The  scene  is  in  Ireland,  and  the 
title  The  Absentee.  When  will  you  let  me  read  it 
to  you  ?  I  would  rather  read  it  to  you  up  in  a  garret 
than  to  the  most  brilliant  audience  in  Christendom." 

With  this  play,  as  read  to  him  by  its  author, 
Mr.  Edgeworth  was,  it  appears,  so  enchanted  that  he 
insisted  —  strongly  against  the  advice  of  its  writer  — 
upon  sending  it  off  at  once  to  Sheridan,  and  endeavour- 
ing, under  his  protection,  to  let  it  try  its  fate  upon  the 
London  boards.  Remonstrance  was  vain.  The  affec- 
tionate parental  despot  must  and  would  have  his  own 
way.  The  play  accordingly  was  despatched  to  Sheridan 
within  a  few  hours  of  its  being  written.  "It  was 
copied,"  Mrs.  Edgeworth  tells  us  in  her  Memoir,  "  in  a 
single  night.  We  all  sat  round  the  library  table,  and, 
each  taking  a  portion,  it  was  completed  by  twelve 
o'clock,  in  eight  different  handwritings." 

In  spite  of  the  enjoyment  of  having  to  decipher 
eight  different  handwritings  at  a  sitting,  the  manager 
proved  obdurate !  In  her  next  letter  Miss  Edgeworth 
writes  as  follows :  —  "  Sheridan  has  answered,  as  I  fore- 
saw he  must,  that  in  the  present  state  of  this  country 
the  Lord  Chamberlain  would  not  licence  TJie  Absentee. 
Besides,  there  would  be  a  difficulty  in  finding  actors 
for  so  many  Irish  characters.  I  like  him  all  the  better 
for  being  so  entirely  of  my  opinion." 

If  she  "  liked  him  all  the  better "  for  refusing  her 
play,  one  can  only  say  that  she  differed  from  the  great 
majority  of  playwrights  or  would-be  playwrights.  That 
Sheridan's  verdict  was  final  even  Mr,  Edgeworth  was 
forced  in  any  case  to  admit.  Messrs.  Johnson,  the 
publishers,  had  been  clamouring  for  a  fresh  series  of 
the  Tales  from  Fasliionahle  Life,  and  it  was  decided, 


X.]         ENNUI— THE  ABSENTEE —ORMOND         135 

therefore,  to  throw  over  Patronage,  —  another  undeni- 
ably ponderous  effort,  which  had  grown  up  under  her 
father's  auspices  —  and  to  add  The  Absentee  to  the  rest 
of  the  stories  already  collecting  for  that  series. 

Turning  for  information  to  Mrs.  Edgeworth's  Memoir 
of  her  stepdaughter,  we  find  her  writing  as  follows :  — 

"  The  idea  of  Irish  absentees  living  in  Loudon  had  origi- 
nally formed  part  of  Patronage,  where  a  Lord  and  Lady  Tip- 
perary  appeared  as  patients  of  Dr.  Percy's.  Patronage  had 
been  intended  to  have  formed  part  of  a  second  series  of 
Fashionable  Tales,  along  with  Vivian  and  £milie  de  Coulanges, 
but  finding  it  impossible  to  finish  it  in  two  volumes,  and  Mr. 
Miles  (Johnson's  successor)  being  anxious  to  publish  the 
second  set  of  Tales  fy-om  Fashionable  Life  early  in  the  ensuing 
year,  Mr.  Edgeworth  advised  Maria  to  lay  aside  Patronage  for 
the  present,  and  taking  out  of  it  the  Irish  absentees,  make  a 
story  that  would  fill  the  volume  and  a  half  wanted  for  the  series. 
She  was  pleased  with  the  idea,  wrote  a  sketch  of  the  story, 
of  which  her  father  approved,  changed  the  name  of  Tipperary 
to  Clonbrony,  and  now  set  to  work  at  The  Absentee." 

In  this  manner  the  book  grew,  and  the  haste  at 
which  it  had  to  be  produced  was  not  perhaps  as 
disadvantageous  to  it  as  to  most  works  of  art,  seeing 
that  the  very  fact  of  such  haste  precluded  the  eternal 
re-adjustments,  interpolations,  moral  disquisitions,  and 
so  forth,  which  it  was  the  peculiar  function  of  her 
Editor  in  Chief  to  supply.  Although  enlivened  by  Lady 
Clonbrony's  aspirations  after  London  society,  the  first 
volume  of  TJie  Absentee  does  not  differ  greatly  from 
some  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  other  "fashionable  tales." 
The  real  interest  of  the  story  only  begins  when  the 
hero.  Lord  Colambre,  setting  forth  upon  his  travels, 
undertakes  to  explore  what  were  for  him  as  yet  terrce 
incognitce  —  his  father's  estates,  namely,  in  Ireland. 


136  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

The  theory  that  Miss  Edgeworth  had  gained,  rather 
than  lost,  by  her  own  acquaintance  with  that  country 
having  been  so  long  postponed,  is  one  which  I  have 
myself  already  disputed.  At  the  same  time,  honesty 
forces  the  avowal  that  the  idea  of  an  Ireland  visited 
for  the  first  time  in  mature  years  by  an  Irishman  or 
half-Irishman,  was  evidently  one  which  had  stamped 
itself  strongly  upon  her  consciousness,  and  so  far  the 
opposite  theory  gains  support.  Not  only  in  Tlie 
Absentee,  but  also  in  the  earlier  story.  Ennui,  we  find 
the  same  situation  occurring,  although  the  details  in 
each  case  vary  not  a  little.  In  the  last-named  book  the 
hero  is  an  opulent  nobleman  —  rather  has  the  semblance 
of  being  one,  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  know  that 
he  was  "changed  at  nurse."  Apart  from  his  Irish 
possessions,  Lord  Glenthorn  was  the  proprietor  of 
sundry  estates  in  England,  also  of  a  London  house,  and 
of  all  else  appropriate  to  the  sort  of  person  apt  to 
be  rhetorically  described  as  "a  belted  Earl."  He  had 
been  married  to  an  heiress,  and  had  found  a  speedy 
occasion  to  divorce  her  —  retaining  apparently  her 
possessions.  He  had  squandered  a  couple  of  fortunes 
of  his  own  at  the  gaming-table,  where  the  scale  of  his 
operations  may  be  judged  by  his  remarking  upon  his 
own  good  fortune  in  having  upon  one  particular  night 
only  lost  "  a  mere  trifle,  ten  thousand  pounds."  As 
the  natural,  or  at  all  events  as  the  moral,  result  of  these 
feats,  he  was  consumed  by  the  painful  malady  which 
gives  its  name  to  the  book,  and  it  was  in  the  hope  of 
dissipating  the  anguish  occasioned  by  it  that  he  sud- 
denly decided  upon  keeping  a  promise  made  to  his  old 
Irish  nurse  (in  reality  his  mother),  and  setting  forth 
to  visit  his  ancestral  possessions  in  Ireland. 


X.]  ENNUI—  THE  ABSENTEE—  OBMOND         137 

As  became  a  person  of  his  importance,  he  of  course 
travelled  in  his  own  coach,  with  his  own  horses,  and 
his  own  coachman  to  drive  them.  He  had  neglected, 
however,  to  supply  a  second  coach  and  more  horses 
for  his  retainers,  and  the  result  was  that  they  were 
forced  .  .  .  But  Lord  Glenthorn  shall  here  explain 
matters  for  himself :  — 

"  My  own  man  (an  Englishman)  and  my  cook  (a  French- 
man) followed  in  a  hackney  chaise ;  I  cared  not  how,  so  that 
they  kept  up  with  me  ;  the  rest  was  their  affair.  At  night, 
my  gentleman  complained  bitterly  of  the  Irish  post  carriages, 
and  besought  me  to  let  him  follow  at  an  easier  rate  the  next 
day,  but  to  this  I  could  by  no  means  consent,  for  how  could 
I  exist  without  my  own  man  and  my  French  cook?  In  the 
morning,  just  as  I  was  ready  to  set  off,  and  had  thrown  myself 
back  in  the  carriage,  my  Englishman  and  Frenchman  came  to 
the  door,  both  in  so  great  a  rage,  that  the  one  was  inarticulate 
and  the  other  imintelligible.  At  length  the  object  of  their 
indignation  spoke  for  itself.  From  the  inn  yard  came  a 
hackney  chaise,  in  a  most  deplorable  crazy  state ;  the  body 
mounted  up  to  a  prodigious  height,  on  unbending  springs, 
nodding  forwards,  one  door  swinging  open,  three  blinds  up, 
because  they  could  not  be  let  down,  the  perch  tied  in  two 
places,  the  iron  of  the  wheels  half  off,  half  loose,  wooden  pegs 
for  linch-pins,  and  ropes  for  harness.  The  horses  were  worthy 
of  the  harness :  wretched  little  dog-tired  creatures,  that  looked 
as  if  they  had  been  driven  to  the  last  gasp,  and  as  if  they 
had  never  been  rubbed  down  in  their  lives.  .  .  . 

"til  an  indignant  voice  I  called  to  the  landlord,  'I  hope 
these  are  not  the  horses  — I  hope  this  is  not  the  chaise,  in- 
tended for  my  servants  ?  ' 

"  The  innkeeper,  and  the  pauper  who  was  preparing  to 
officiate  as  postillion,  both  in  the  same  instant  exclaimed, 
*  Sorrow  better  chaise  in  the  county  1 ' 

"  '  Sorrow ! '  said  I ;  '  what  do  you  mean  by  sorrow  ? ' 

"  '  That  there's  no  better,  plase  your  honour,  can  be  seen. 
We  have  two  more,  to  be  sure  ;  but  oue  has  no  top,  and  the 


138  MARIA  EDGE  WORTH  [chap. 

other  no  bottom.  Any  way,  there 's  no  better  can  be  seen 
than  this  same.' 

"  '  And  these  horses  ! '  cried  I ;  '  why,  this  horse  is  so  lame 
he  can  hardly  stand.' 

" '  Oh,  plase  your  honour,  tho'  he  can't  stand,  he  '11  go  fast 
enough.  He  has  a  great  deal  of  the  rogue  in  him,  plase  your 
honour.     He 's  always  that  way  at  first  setting  out.' 

"...  I  could  not  avoid  smiling,  but  my  gentleman,  main- 
taining his  angry  gravity,  declared,  in  a  sullen  tone,  that  he 
would  be  cursed  if  he  went  with  such  horses  ;  and  the  French- 
man, with  abundance  of  gesticulation,  made  a  prodigious 
chattering,  which  no  mortal  understood. 

"  '  Then  I  '11  tell  you  what  you  '11  do,'  said  Paddy ;  '  you  '11 
take  four,  as  becomes  gentlemen  of  your  quality,  and  you  '11 
see  how  we  '11  powder  along.' 

"  And  straight  he  put  the  knuckle  of  his  fore-finger  in  his 
mouth,  and  whistled  shrill  and  strong;  and,  in  a  moment,  a 
whistle  somewhere  out  in  the  fields  answered  him. 

"  I  protested  against  these  proceedings,  but  in  vain ;  before 
the  first  pair  of.  horses  were  fastened  to  the  chaise,  up  came  a 
little  boy  with  the  others  fresh  from  the  plough.  They  were 
quick  enough  in  putting  these  to ;  yet  how  they  managed 
it  with  then-  tackle,  I  know  not.  '  Now  we  're  fixed  hand- 
somely,' said  Paddy. 

"  '  But  this  chaise  will  break  down  the  first  mile.' 

"  '  Is  it  this  chaise,  plase  your  honour  ?  I  '11  engage  it  will 
go  the  world's  end.  The  universe  wouldn't  break  it  down 
now ;  sure  it  was  mended  but  last  night.  .  .  .' 

"  At  last,  by  dint  of  whipping,  the  four  horses  were  com- 
pelled to  set  off  in  a  lame  gallop ;  but  they  stopped  short  at 
a  hill  near  the  end  of  the  town,  whilst  a  shouting  troop  of 
ragged  boys  followed,  and  pushed  them  fairly  to  the  top. 
Half  an  hour  afterwards,  as  we  were  putting  on  our  drag- 
chain  to  go  down  another  steep  hill  —  to  my  utter  astonish- 
ment, Paddy,  with  his  horses  in  full  gallop,  came  rattling  and 
chehupping  past  us.  My  people  called  to  warn  him  that  he 
had  no  drag ;  but  still  he  cried  '  Never  fear  I '  and  shaking  the 
long  reins,  and  stamping  with  his  foot,  on  he  went  thundering 
down  the  hill.     My  Englishmen  were  aghast. 


X.]         ENNUI— THE  ABSENTEE—  ORMOND         139 

"  '  The  turn  yonder  below,  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  is  as 
sharp  and  ugly  as  ever  I  see,'  said  my  postillion,  after  a 
mome)it's  stupefied  silence.  '  Pie  will  break  their  necks,  as 
sure  as  my  name  is  John.' 

"  Quite  the  contrary  :  when  we  had  dragged  and  undragged, 
and  came  up  with  Paddy,  we  found  him  safe  on  his  legs, 
mending  some  of  his  tackle  very  quietly. 

"  '  If  that  had  broke  as  you  were  going  down  the  steep  hill,' 
said  I,  '  it  would  have  been  all  over  with  you,  Paddy.' 

"  '  That 's  true,  plase  your  honour :  biit  it  never  happened 
me  going  down  hill  —  nor  never  will,  by  the  blessing  of  God, 
if  I  've  any  luck.'  " 

The  Absentee  is  in  like  manner  taken  up  with  expound- 
ing the  effect  likely  to  have  been  produced  upon  an 
intelligent  stranger  by  the  Ireland  of  that  day.  Unlike 
the  more  imposing  progress  of  his  predecessor,  Lord 
Colambre's  first  visit  to  his  father's  estates  is  made 
in  very  humble  guise.  He  travels  "  incog.,"  as  we 
might  suppose  some  heir-apparent  to  visit  the  Kingdom 
which  he  hopes  to  inherit.  His  first  night  is  spent 
under  the  roof  of  a  neighbouring  agent,  one  of  Miss 
Edgeworth's  painfully  immaculate  characters,  but  in 
this  case  justifiably  so,  seeing  that  he  has  to  serve  as 
a  contrast  to  all  the  other  agents  of  the  book.  The 
second  night  Lord  Colambre  sleeps  in  a  cabin  belonging 
to  the  widow  O'Neill,  the  mother  of  one  of  his  father's 
tenants,  who  has  recently  been  cheated  out  of  her  poor 
rights  by  the  demoniacal  "  St.  Denis,"  and  was  destined 
to  be  further  cheated  out  of  them  under  his  own  eyes 
upon  the  following  day.  Here  the  best  specimen  short 
enough  for  quotation  is  perhaps  the  letter  of  the  local 
car-driver  Larry  Brady,  to  his  brother  in  London, 
which  forms  a  sort  of  postscript  to  the  book.  Larry 
is  urging  his  brother  to  return  home  to  Cloubrony, 


140  MAKIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

seeing  that  the  all-potent  "  masther "  is  once  more 
installed  there,  and  that  the  Millennium  is  evidently 
just  about  to  begin  ! 

"  Ogh,  it 's  I  driv'  'em  well ;  and  we  all  got  to  the  great  gate 
of  the  park  before  sunset,  and  as  fine  an  evening  as  ever  you 
see ;  with  the  sun  shining  on  the  tops  of  the  trees,  as  the 
ladies  noticed;  the  leaves  changed,  but  not  dropped,  though 
so  late  in  the  season.  I  believe  the  leaves  knew  what  they 
were  about,  and  kept  on,  on  purpose  to  welcome  them.  And 
the  birds  were  singing,  and  I  stopped  whistling,  that  they 
might  hear  them,  but  sorrow  bit  could  they  hear  when  they 
got  to  the  park  gate,  for  there  was  such  a  crowd,  and  such  a 
shout  as  you  never  see  —  and  they  had  the  horses  off  every 
carriage  entirely,  and  drew  'em  home,  with  blessings,  through 
the  park.  And  God  bless  'em  !  when  they  got  out,  they 
didn't  go  shut  themselves  up  in  the  great  drawing-room,  but 
went  straight  out  to  the  tirrass,  to  satisfy  the  eyes  and  hearts 
that  followed  them. 

"...  After  a  turn  or  two  upon  the  tirrass,  my  Lord  Co- 
lambre  quit  his  mother's  arm  for  a  minute,  and  he  come  to 
the  edge  of  the  slope,  and  looked  down  and  through  the 
crowd  for  some  one. 

" '  Is  it  the  widow  O'Neill,  my  lord  ? '  says  I ;  '  she  's  yonder, 
with  the  spectacles  on  her  nose,  betwixt  her  son  anddaughter, 
as  usual.' 

"  Then  my  lord  beckoned,  and  they  did  not  know  which  of 
the  tree  would  stir ;  and  then  he  gave  tree  beckons  wdth  his 
own  finger,  and  they  all  tree  came  fast  enough  to  the  bottom 
of  the  slope  forenent  my  lord;  and  he  went  down  and  helped 
the  widow  up  (Oh,  he 's  the  true  jantleman),  and  brought  'em 
all  tree  up  on  the  tirrass,  to  my  lady  and  ]\Iiss  Nugent ;  and 
I  was  close  up  after,  that  I  might  hear,  which  wasn't  manners, 
but  I  couldn't  help  it.  So  what  he  said  I  don't  well  know, 
for  I  could  not  get  near  enough,  after  all.  But  I  saw  my 
lady  smile  very  khid,  and  take  the  widow  O'Neill  by  the 
hand,  and  then  my  Lord  Colambre  'troduced  Grace  to  Miss 
Nugent,  and  there  was  the  word  'namesake,'  and  something 
about  a  check  curtain,  but,  whatever  it  was,  they  was  all 


X.]         ENNUI—  THE  ABSENTEE—  OliMOND         141 

greatly  pleased.  Then  my  Lord  Colambre  turned  and  looked 
for  Brian,  who  had  fell  back,  and  took  him  with  some  com- 
mendation to  my  lord  his  father.  And  my  old  lord  the  master 
said  —  which  I  didn't  know  till  after  —  that  they  should 
have  then-  house  and  farm  at  the  ould  rent ;  and  at  the  sur- 
prise, the  widow  dropped  down  dead  ;  and  there  was  a  cry  as 
for  ten  herrings.  '  Be  qui'te,'  says  I,  '  she  's  only  kilt  for  joy.' 
And  I  went  and  lift  her  up,  for  her  son  had  no  more  strength 
that  minute  than  the  child  new-born ;  and  Grace  trembled 
like  a  leaf,  as  white  as  the  sheet,  but  not  long,  for  the  mother 
came  to,  and  was  as  well  as  ever,  when  I  brought  some  water, 
which  Miss  Nugent  handed  to  her  with  her  own  hand." 

These,  alas,  are  all  the  extracts  which  the  scale  of 
this  book  will  admit  of,  and  I  must  only  hope  that  they 
may  send  its  readers  flying  to  their  shelves  in  search  of 
more.  To  assume  that  Miss  Edgew^orth's  books,  even 
her  Irish  books,  are  intimately  known  to  the  reading 
public  of  to-day,  would,  I  fear,  be  rash ;  but  to  assert 
that  they  ought  to  be  known  is  assuredly  not  so : 
indeed  for  Irish  readers  their  value  may  be  said  to 
have  increased  rather  than  diminished  by  the  lapse 
of  time.  In  fiction,  as  in  poetry,  we  all  to  a  great 
degree  find  what  we  bring,  and  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  uncommonly  pregnant  matter  for  reflection  to  be 
found  in  these  century-old  books.  Under  their 
guidance  we  seem  to  be  gazing  down  a  long  and 
remarkably  steep  incline,  the  lowest  portion  of  which 
has  only  been  attained  in  our  own  day.  The  position 
of  an  Irish  landlord  a  century  ago  was  extraordina- 
rily different,  it  must  be  remembered,  from  the  posi- 
tion of  his  equals  and  contemporaries  across  the 
Channel.  It  was  a  position  which  had  come  down  to 
him  from  early  days,  the  holders  of  which  had  indeed 
changed  —  changed  often  both  in  race  and  in  creed  — 


142  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap, 

but  who  still  substantially  represented  their  pre- 
decessors, and  stood  in  much  the  same  sort  of 
relationship  to  those  around  them.  The  old  Irish 
proverb,  "  Spend  me,  and  defend  me,"  expresses  pretty 
clearly  what  that  relationship  was,  or,  rather,  what  it 
had  originally  been  intended  to  be.  That  it  was  a 
wholesome  or  a  dignified  relationship,  especially  at  so 
late  a  date  as  we  are  considering,  it  would  be  rash 
to  assert,  although  this  much  may  be  said  in  its 
favour,  that  it  allowed  more  of  the  personal,  and  con- 
sequently of  the  human,  element,  than  has  always  been 
found  in  more  self-respecting  ties. 

The  real  fatality,  the  underlying  curse  of  the  whole 
system,  lay  in  its  exceptional  liability  to  abuse.  When- 
ever the  enormous  powers  —  traditional  even  more  than 
legal  —  of  an  owner  came  to  be  delegated,  there,  with- 
out doubt,  abuses  grew  to  be  the  rule  rather  than  the 
exception.  By  no  one  have  the  vices  of  the  system 
been  exposed  with  a  more  vigorous  hand,  or  the  lash 
laid  more  unsparingly  upon  the  right  shoulders,  than 
by  Miss  Edgeworth  herself,  daughter  and  descendant 
of  Irish  landlords  though  she  was.  But  that  the  limits 
of  quotation  have  already  been  somewhat  recklessly 
exceeded,  I  should  be  tempted  to  turn  back  here  to 
Castle  Rackrent,  seeing  that  in  it  alone,  of  all  Miss 
Edge  worth's  books,  do  we  find  those  qualities  of  brevity, 
force,  and  effectiveness  which  are  the  most  essential  of 
all  for  a  successful  quotation.  In  the  three  books  under 
consideration,  the  treatment  is,  perhaps  inevitably,  at 
once  looser,  less  superficially  humorous,  yet  in  reality 
less  cogent,  and  even  less  tragical,  than  the  peculiar 
concentration  and  brevity  of  her  earlier  story  made 
possible.     They  are  also,  to  a  greater  or  less  degree, 


X.  ]  ENNUI  —  THE  ABSENTEE  —  ORMOND 


143 


infected  with  that  conscientious  desire  after  a  particu- 
larly irritating  form  of  edification,  of  which,  amongst  all 
Miss  Edgeworth's  books,  Castle  Eackrent  alone  stands 
absolutely  free. 

In  the  latest  of  her  Irish  stories —  Ormond — we  meet 
with  what  are  perhaps  the  two  best  and  most  lifelike 
character-pictures  which  our  author  ever  drew.     Even 
the  hero  is  in  this  case  more  of  a  possible  young  man, 
and  less  of  a  mere  peg  to  hang  edifying  sentiments 
upon,  than  is  common  with  her,  or  with  perhaps  the 
majority  of  novelists.     The  two  great  personages,  how- 
ever, of  the  book  are  of  course  "King  Condy,"  the 
good-hearted,  despotic,  claret-drinking  sovereign  of  the 
Black  Islands,  and  his  relative  and  rival  in  the  affec- 
tions of  the  hero,  Sir  Ulick  O'Shane.      In  the  first- 
named  we  have  a  figure  which  may  fairly  be  placed 
alongside  of  the  Antiquary,  or  of  the  Baron  of  Brad- 
wardine.     Like  them  he  belonged  to  a  nearly  extinct 
type,  a  type  which  even  at  the  time  it  was  painted 
was  already  vanishing  from  the  stage,  and  in  another 
dozen  years  or  so  would  have  become  an  impossibility. 
His  kinsman,    and   special    aversion,   the    scheming, 
wheedling  politician,  Sir  Ulick,  is  also  an  admirable 
portrait,  and  is  depicted  with  more  subtlety  than  was 
usual  with  Miss   Edgeworth.     Here  the  difficulty  in 
abstaining  from  quotation  is  less,  seeing  that  it  would 
be  difficult  to  find  any  extract  short  enough  not  to  be 
spoilt  by  condensation.      I  therefore  content  myself 
with  the  following  excellent  little  bit  of  rhymed  epi- 
gram, descriptive  of  Sir  Ulick's  methods  of  vindicat- 
ing his  patriotism :  — 

"To  serve  in  Parliament  the  nation, 
Sir  Ulick  read  his  recantation  : 


144  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

At  first  he  joined  the  patriot  throng, 

But  soon  perceiving  he  was  wrong, 

He  ratted  to  the  coiirtier  tribe. 

Bought  by  a  title  and  a  bribe  ; 

But  how  that  new-found  friend  to  bind 

With  any  oath  —  of  any  kind  — 

Disturb'd  the  premier's  wary  mind. 

Upon  his  faith.  — '  Upon  his  word.' 

Oh !  that,  my  friend,  is  too  absurd. 

*  Upon  his  honour.'  —  Quite  a  jest. 

'Upon  his  conscience.'  —  No  such  test. 

'  By  all  he  has  on  earth.'  —  'Tis  gone. 

'  By  all  his  hopes  of  heav'n.'  —  They  're  none. 

'  How  then  secure  him  in  our  pay, 

He  can't  be  trusted  for  a  day  ? ' 

How?  —  When  you  want  the  fellow's  throat, 

Pay  by  the  job,  —  you  have  his  vote." 

For  Miss  Edgewortli  herself  Ormond  had  always  a 
peculiar  though  a  very  melancholy  interest,  from  the 
fact  of  its  having  been  written  during  the  concluding 
months  of  her  father's  life — indeed  the  printing  had  to 
be  pushed  forward,  so  that  it  might  reach  Edgeworths- 
town  while  he  was  still  alive,  and  able  to  enjoy  the 
satisfaction  of  having  it  read  to  him  by  its  author. 

Such  small  gibes  as  the  mention  of  his  name  have 
now  and  then  irresistibly  called  forth,  sink  naturally 
to  decent  silence  as  one  stands  before  the  closing  scene 
of  what  was  in  all  essentials  so  respectworthy  a  life. 
The  picture  of  the  old  patriarch  upon  his  seventy-first 
birthday,  surrounded  for  the  last  time  by  his  w^ell- 
nigh  countless  children  and  other  relations,  occupying 
all  the  chairs  in  the  room,  and  sitting  about  on  stools 
at  his  feet,  has  been  preserved  for  us  by  Maria  Edge- 
worth  herself.  It  will  be  found  in  a  letter  to  her  cousin 
Sophy  Kuxton :  — 


X.]         ENNUI— THE  ABSENTEE— 0R3I0ND         145 

"  He  could  not  dine  with  us,  but  after  dinner  he  sent  for  us 
all  into  the  library.  He  sat  in  the  armchair,  by  the  fire,  my 
mother  in  the  opposite  armchair,  Pakenham  in  the  chair 
behind  her,  Francis  on  a  stool  at  her  feet,  Maria  beside  them  ; 
William  next ;  Lucy,  Sneyd,  on  the  sofa  behind  the  fire,  as 
when  you  were  here  ;  Honora,  Fanny,  Harriet,  and  Sophy  ; 
my  aunts  next  to  my  father,  and  Lovell  between  them  and 
the  sofa.  He  was  much  pleased  at  Lovell  and  Sneyd  coming 
down  for  this  day." 

A  fortnight  later,  upon  June  13,  1817,  Mr.  Edge- 
worth  died.  What  the  loss  of  him  meant  to  his  own 
family  was  succinctly  expressed  by  his  widow  in  the 
memoir  of  her  stepdaughter — ''The  rest  of  that  year 
was  a  blank." 


CHAPTER  XI 

MEMOIR    OF     R.     L.     EDGEWORTH THE     QUARTERLY 

PARIS  —  GEXEVA 

The  death  of  her  father  was  for  Miss  Edgeworth  one 
of  those  turning-points  in  life  which  never  leave  the 
inind  exactly  as  it  had  been  before.  Her  powers  of 
rebound  were  considerable,  and  her  natural  good  spirits 
after  a  time  returned,  but  we  can  see  the  traces  of  this 
sorrow  up  to  the  very  end  of  her  life.  Nor  is  there 
anything  surprising  in  this.  Exasperating  as  was  his 
interference  with  what,  in  our  judgment,  lay  wholly 
outside  his  province,  it  would  be  unjust  not  to  realise 
that  the  peculiar  and  very  charming  link  which  has  so 
often  united  a  daughter  to  a  father  has  on  the  whole 
rarely  found  a  better  exemplification  than  in  their 
case.  Exceptionally  open  as  she  was  to  all  the  ties  of 
affection,  it  is  nevertheless  evident  that  for  Miss  Edge- 
worth  her  father  stood  head  and  shoulders  above  every 
other  object  of  affection  whom  she  had  ever  known,  or 
was  ever  destined  to  know.  Now  he  was  gone,  and 
for  a  long  time  it  seemed  as  if  life  itself  was  scarcely 
conceivable  without  him. 

She  had  a  physical  discomfort  which  added  to  her 
other  sources  of  depression.  Her  eyes  had  again  become 
extremely  painful.  She  told  one  of  her  relations  that 
the  tears^  when  she  shed  them,  "  cut  like  a  knife,"  and 

146 


CHAP.  XI.]     MEMOIR   OF  R.   L.  EDGEWORTH  147 

she  was  not  given  to  exaggerated  expressions  about 
herself.  What  at  length,  though  not  until  after  a  con- 
siderable interval,  roused  her  from  her  depression  was 
the  necessity  under  which  she  felt  herself  to  lie  of  pre- 
paring this  adored  father's  Memoirs  for  publication,  a 
task  to  which  she  settled  resolutely,  as  soon  as  her 
eyes  had  sufficiently  recovered  to  make  it  possible. 

It  was  an  almost  hopelessly  difficult  one,  all  the  more 
because  Mr.  Edgeworth  —  changing  his  mind  apparently 
at  the  last  moment  —  had,  as  his  dying  injunction,  left 
orders  that  his  own  share  of  the  work  was  to  be  printed 
intact,  with  all  its  errors,  inaccuracies,  and  solecisms, 
exactly  as  he  had  left  it.  The  second  volume  was 
Miss  Edgeworth's  contribution  to  the  work,  and  may 
be  called  the  chief,  no  less  than  the  last,  tribute  of 
devotion  paid  by  her  to  her  father,  and  for  that  very 
reason  will  never,  unfortunately,  be  anything  but  a 
source  of  considerable  discomfort  to  her  admirers.  So 
completely  did  she  in  writing  it  subordinate  her  own 
style  to  his,  that  she  achieved  what,  without  such  an 
unmistakable  piece  of  evidence,  one  would  have  been 
inclined  to  believe  impossible — she  succeeded  in  becom- 
ing excessively  dull !  In  this  undertaking  she  may 
be  said  to  have  actually  surpassed  her  model,  for  Mr. 
Edgeworth's  own  autobiography  is  undoubtedly  very 
much  less  dull  than  is  the  continuation  by  his  daughter. 
The  flood  of  anecdote  with  which  this  first  portion  is 
enlivened,  as  well  as  the  intense — I  may  say  con- 
tagious —  exultation  over  his  own  achievements,  which 
overflows  the  whole  of  it,  would  alone  keep  it  from 
that  reproach.  In  the  second  volume  not  only  are  the 
anecdotes  fewer,  but  admiration  for  the  subject  of  the 
book  —  no  longer  enlivened  and  made  piquant  by  inno- 


148  MAEIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

cent  vanity  —  becomes  ponderous,  and  of  the  nature  of 
an  eloge  fun^bre,  or  solemn  and  wearisome  panegyric. 

That  her  own  anxiety  upon  the  subject  was  great  is 
evident,  and  not,  as  has  been  shown,  unnatural.  As 
the  book  began  to  approach  completion  she  grew 
eager  to  obtain  some  opinion  upon  it,  more  critical 
than  the  family  circle  could  be  expected  to  furnish. 
Her  own  and  her  father's  friend,  M.  Dumont,  was 
about  to  pay  a  lengthened  visit  to  Bowood,  and  Lord 
and  Lady  Lansdowne  wrote  urgently,  indeed  affection- 
ately, to  beg  of  her  to  meet  him  there.  This  she 
agreed  to  do,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1818,  a  year  and 
a  half  after  her  father's  death,  she,  for  the  first  time 
since  that  event,  left  Ireland,  taking  with  her  her 
young  half-sister,  Honora.  They  reached  Bowood 
upon  the  7th  of  September. 

From  the  description  given  to  her  relations,  Bowood 
seems  to  have  been  quite  the  right  house  for  an  ardent 
worker  to  pay  a  visit  in  !  Immediately  after  breakfast 
the  whole  party  are  described  by  Miss  Edgeworth  as 
separating,  each  to  his  or  her  several  tasks,  and  not 
being  expected  to  meet  again  until  luncheon  time. 
Writing  to  her  stepmother  she  is  able  presently  to 
assure  her  that  M.  Dumont  is  greatly  pleased  with  her 
father's  manuscript  —  that  is  to  say  with  the  first  volume, 
the  autobiography.  "  He  hates  Mr.  Day,"  the  letter 
goes  on  —  "  in  spite  of  all  his  good  qualities.  He  says 
he  knows  '  he  could  not  bear  that  sort  of  man,  who  has 
such  pride  and  misanthropies  about  trifles,  raising  a 
great  theory  of  morals  upon  an  amour  hlessL''  "  Lady 
Lansdowne  is  reported,  on  the  other  hand,  to  "  admire 
and  love  Mr,  Day  as  much  as  Dumont  disliked  him," 
an  expression  of  opinion  which  it  is  permissible  to  set 


XI.]  MEMOIR   OF  R.    L.   EDGEWORTH  149 

down  rather  to  a  friendly  desire  to  please  her  guest, 
than  to  any  very  serious  effort  at  criticism. 

A  propos  of  Mr.  Day,  an  unpublished  letter  of  this 
date  is  extant  which  gives  a  lively  account  of  an  ex- 
pedition in  search  of  a  former  residence  of  his.  It 
seems  to  be  worth  inserting,  if  only  as  a  proof  that 
Miss  Edgeworth  was  beginning  once  more  to  enjoy 
life,  and  to  enter  into  its  various  incidents  large  or 
small:  — 

"  We  had  a  pleasant  drive  while  at  Epping  with  Mr. 
Lestock  Wilson,  to  look  for  Mr.  Day's  old  house.  We 
stopped  at  cottages  to  inquire,  but  no  man  under  forty 
knew  more  than  that  there  had  been  such  a  person. 
Mr.  Wilson  was  going  to  get  down  to  inquire,  and 
offered  to  leave  the  reins  in  my  hands,  to  which  I 
objected  with  an  earnestness  that  diverted  him  and 
Honora  much.  At  last  we  found  a  gentleman  who 
was  proud  to  tell  us  that  the  fee  simple  of  the  property, 
formerly  Mr.  Day's,  was  now  his ;  a  farmer  Ainsworth 
now  occupied  the  house.  I  had  described  the  place  to 
my  companions,  and  as  we  drove  up,  missing  the  wood, 
and  seeing  a  house  quite  unlike  what  I  remembered, 
I  thought  it  could  not  be  the  right  place ;  but  as  we 
got  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  the  wood  discovered  itself 
below.  I  got  out,  and  crossed  the  dirty  road,  in  spite 
of  a  dog  barking,  and  springing  to  the  length  of  his 
chain.  A  woman  and  children  appeared,  staring  as 
if  stuck  through  with  amazement.  Then  a  charming 
old  grey-headed  man,  leaning  on  crutches,  but  with 
ruddy  cheeks  and  smooth  forehead,  and  fine  dark  eyes, 
which  lighted  up  and  sparkled  with  pleasure  and 
affection,  when  I  mentioned  the  name  of  Day. 


150  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

" '  Day !  know  him  ?  ay,  sure  I  do,  and  have  good 
reason  for  to  do ;  for  very  good  he  was  to  me.  Please 
to  walk  in  ! '  —  pointing  with  his  crutch.  '  The  house 
he  lived  in  was  all  pulled  down,  every  bit,  except  yon 
brick  wall.' 

"We  went  in,  and  he  seated  himself  in  his  elbow- 
chair  by  the  kitchen  fire,  as  you  will  see  in  Honora's 
sketch  of  him. 

" '  Oh !  Mr.  Day  was  a  good  man,  and  did  a  power  of 
good  to  the  poorer  sort.  I  was  one  of  his  day's-men  at 
first,  and  then  he  helped  me  on ;  and  when  he  was 
tired  of  this  here  place,  and  wanted  to  settle  at  his 
other  place,  he  offered  me  this ;  but  I  said,  "  Sir,  I  am 
not  able  for  it,"  and  he  said,  "  But,  Ainsworth,  if  I 
help  you  a  bit,  you  '11  then  be  able,  won't  you  ?  " ' 

"It  was  quite  touching  to  me  to  hear  the  manner  in 
which  this  worthy  old  man  spoke  of  Mr.  Day.  I 
asked  him  if  he  remembered  the  servant  Mr.  Day 
had  who  ploughed  the  sandy  field  sixteen  times  ? 

" '  George  Bristow !  Oh,  ay,  I  remember  him ;  an 
honest,  good  servant  he  was ! ' 

" '  He  is  now  our  servant.' 

" '  Why,  I  thought  he  went  to  live  with  a  family  in 
Ireland  ? ' 

" '  So  he  did  —  with  our  family.' 

" '  Oh,  you  comes  from  Ireland  ?  ' 

"  So  much  for  Farmer  Ainsworth  !  " 

Upon  the  same  day,  or  the  one  following,  Miss 
Edgeworth  paid  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Barbauld  at  Stoke 
Newington.  Cheerful  as  she  seemed  to  strangers,  it 
is  evident  that  the  blow  she  had  received  still  ached. 
In  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  her  step- 


XI.]  MEMOIR   OF  R.  L.    EDGEWORTH  161 

mother  descriptive  of  that  visit,  there  is  a  sense  of 
the  weariness,  the  underlying  desolateness  of  life,  very- 
rare  in  one  of  her  essentially  light-hearted  and  uniu- 
trospective  temperament :  — 

"  We  waited  some  time  before  she  "  (Mrs.  Barbauld)  "  ap- 
peared, and  I  had  leisure  to  recollect  everything  that  could 
make  me  melancholy  —  the  very  sofa  that,  you  will  remember, 
you  and  my  father  sat  on.  I  was  quite  undone  before  she  came 
in,  but  was  forced  to  get  through  with  it.  She  was  gratified 
with  our  visit,  and  very  kind  and  agreeable.  Opposite  to  me 
sat  Miss  Hammond  ;  I  asked  for  her  brother,  who  is  well ; 
and  I  felt  as  if  I  had  lived  three  lives  —  as  if  I  had  lived  a 
hundred  years,  and  was  left  alive  after  everybody  else." 

Another,  and  a  more  cheerful  visit,  paid  about 
the  same  date,  was  to  Joanna  Baillie.  We  have  a 
lively  picture  of  the  still  older  authoress  and  one  of 
her  sisters  "  running  down  their  little  paved  path  "  to 
meet  their  visitors.  A  few  days  later  the  two  Miss 
Edgeworths  returned  to  Bowood,  but  this  second  visit 
was  marred  by  the  sudden  and  tragic  death  of  Sir 
Samuel  Komilly,  an  event  which  was  a  source  of  such 
evidently  acute  sorrow  to  both  Lord  and  Lady  Lans- 
downe,  that  they  considerately  shortened  their  visit  in 
order  to  leave  them  alone. 

After  leaving  Bowood  for  the  second  time  Miss 
Edgeworth  paid  a  visit  to  her  connections  the  Sneyds, 
and  there  set  to  work  diligently  at  the  Memoir,  fortified 
by  M.  Dumont's  general  approval  of  it,  and  endeavour- 
ing, so  far  as  was  possible,  to  carry  out  his  various 
criticisms.  She  does  not  seem  to  have  returned  to 
Ireland  at  all  that  year,  but  remained  on  in  England 
till  the  following  summer,  paying  a  visit  of  some 
months  at   Berkeley   Lodge,   where   her   two   Sneyd 


152  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

aunts  had  temporarily  taken  up  their  quarters  with  a 
brother.  By  the  March  following  we  hear  that  "  the 
first  part  of  the  manuscript  is  in  Hunter's  hands," 
and  before  the  end  of  that  year  the  whole  of  it  was 
completed,  but  Miss  Edgeworth's  own  reluctance  to 
publication  was  still  strong,  and  the  actual  appear- 
ance of  the  book  was  delayed  until  the  following 
Easter. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  sympathise  with  that  hesita- 
tion. Indeed,  if  the  postponement  of  the  book  had 
proved  to  be  an  eternal  one,  few  critics  wovild  be 
prepared  to  say  that  the  reputation  of  either  the 
writer  or  subject  of  it  would  have  suffered !  Con- 
sidering the  whole  tone  of  it ;  considering  its  flood 
of  unstinted  panegyric  ;  considering  the  very  ample 
openings  which  it  afforded  to  criticism,  especially  as 
regards  the  first  volume,  it  cannot  be  said  that  its 
reception  was  upon  the  whole  other  than  friendly. 
In  one  case,  but  in  one  case  only,  the  limits  of  fair 
criticism  were  unquestionably  surpassed,  and  it  is  satis- 
factory to  believe  that  this  particular  notice  never  met 
the  eyes  which  it  has  every  appearance  of  having  been 
especially  aimed  at.  The  review  in  the  Quarterly  was 
couched  in  that  peculiar  style  of  unctuous  piety  which 
seems  then,  and  for  many  years,  to  have  been  the 
special  pride  and  glory  of  that  review.  Little  doubt 
is  allowed  to  rest  upon  the  minds  of  its  readers  —  one 
of  which  readers  it  was  clearly  hoped  might  be  Mr. 
Edgeworth's  own  daughter  —  as  to  the  destiny  to  which 
the  subject  of  the  Memoir  in  question  had  laid  himself 
open.  After  a  lengthened  exposition  of  Mr.  Edge- 
worth's  opinions,  real  or  supposed,  "  We  wish,"  the 
reviewer  goes  on  to  observe,  "  that  we  could  add  that 


XI.]  THE    QUARTEELT  153 

they  "  —  i.e.  the  opinions — "  gave  us  any  reason  to  hope 
that  they  were  founded  in  a  spirit  of  Christian  con- 
fidence. We  regret  to  say  that  they  do  not.  Moreover 
Mr.  Edgeworth's  life  leads  us  to  fear  that  the  omissions 
of  all  expressions  of  devoutness  in  the  productions  of 
him  and  his  daughter  arise,  neither  from  an  opinion 
of  their  being  extraneous  to  the  subject,  nor  yet  from 
accident,  but  .  .  ."  etc.,  etc. 

Further  on  in  the  same  article  Miss  Edgeworth  is 
personally  and  with  inquisitorial  solemnity  adjured  to 
lift  a  load  from  off  the  reviewer's  soul,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  clear,  if  by  any  possibility  she  can  do  so,  the 
guilt  which  rests  upon  that  of  her  father.  "Three 
words  may  yet  clear  up  the  difficulty  "  —  so  runs  this 
amazing  paragraph  —  "  and  if  Miss  Edgeworth  is  able 
in  her  next  work  to  say  '  3fy  father  teas  a  Christian,' 
she  will  do  a  pious  office  to  his  memory,  no  incon- 
siderable good  to  mankind,  and  no  ojie  "  —  let  us  sit 
down  for  a  moment,  and  ponder  upon  the  charity  of 
this  remark  —  "  no  one  will  be  better  pleased  than  we 
shall  ourselves." 

Even  to  the  charity  of  a  Quarterly  reviewer  there 
had,  however,  obviously  to  be  limits,  and  a  reprobation 
which  would  in  that  case  have  been  somewhat  lightened 
as  regards  the  rank  heathenism  of  Miss  Edgeworth, 
would  have  had  to  be  transferred  to  the  score  of  her 
carelessness  and  inexcusable  inaccuracy.  After  a  dis- 
sertation pregnant  with  the  very  darkest  misgivings  as 
regards  the  fate  of  her  father  —  "We  shall  rejoice," 
the  reviewer  concludes  by  saying,  "  if  we  find  that  her 
inaccurate  modes  of  expression  had  confirmed  us  in  an 
error  into  which  her  father's  own  avowals  had  origi- 
nally led  us." 


154  MARIA  EDGEWOETH  [chap. 

Studying  this  attractive  production,  and  reflecting, 
moreover,  upon  its  evident  animus,  it  is  not  easy  for 
a  biographer  to  set  bounds  to  his  or  her  indignation. 
We  must,  however,  in  fairness  remember  that  the  in- 
quisitorial note,  which  to  the  taste  of  to-day  reads  like 
the  worst  and  most  gratuitous  form  of  impertinence, 
was,  at  the  time  it  was  penned,  indeed  long  afterwards, 
the  rule  rather  than  the  exception,  on  the  part  of  critics 
who  considered  themselves  to  be  the  guardians,  not  of 
religion  only,  but  of  morality  and  decency.  Eeaders 
of  Mr.  Morley's  recent  life  of  Mr.  Gladstone  can  hardly 
have  failed  to  be  startled  by  the  fashion  in  which,  long 
after  his  entrance  into  public  life,  Mr.  Gladstone  him- 
self not  alone  excused,  but  upheld,  similar  inquiries 
into  the  most  private  opinions  of  political  contem- 
poraries. It  must,  moreover,  be  remembered  that  the 
dogmatic  tone  adopted  by  the  Edgeworth  circle  — 
especially  by  Mr.  Edgeworth  himself  —  was  hardly  less 
provocative,  and  was  even  fuller  of  the  joy  and  zeal 
of  self-righteousness  than  that  of  his  critic,  and  that 
to  this  extent  the  intended  castigation  may  be  said  to 
have  fallen  not  wholly  inappropriately. 

Happily,  so  far  as  Miss  Edgeworth  was  concerned, 
the  only  effect  of  the  vituperation  seems  to  have  been 
to  awaken  a  vehement  outburst  of  affectionate  indig- 
nation on  the  part  of  all  her  friends.  M.  Duraout 
wrote  to  her  from  Geneva,  entreating  her  not  to  read 
that  "  infame  article  "  —  "  cette  attaque  ccdomnieuse  de  la 
Quarterly  Eevieiu."  Other  friends  wrote  in  the  same 
sense,  and,  what  was  perhaps  more  surprising,  she 
seems  to  have  had  the  strength  of  mind  to  decide 
from  the  first  that  she  had  no  intention  of  reading  it, 
and  to  have  kept  to  that  resolution. 


XI.]  PAKIS  155 

It  was  a  resolution  which  was  the  easier  to  keep  to 
owing  to  the  fact  that,  long  before  she  could  have  been 
tempted  to  break  it,  she  was  already  far  from  England, 
and  her  attention  fully  occupied  by  new  scenes  and 
interests.  She  had  returned  to  Edgeworthstown  in  the 
course  of  the  summer  of  1819,  and  after  about  eight  or 
nine  months  there,  she  started  again  in  the  April  follow- 
ing, taking  with  her  her  two  young  sisters,  Eanny  and 
Harriet,  all  three  bound  this  time  for  the  Continent. 
It  was  the  first  occasion  upon  which  Miss  Edgeworth 
had  crossed  the  Channel  in  a  steamer,  and  the  inno- 
vation did  not  apparently  please  her,  since  she  com- 
pares the  motion  of  it,  oddly  enough,  to  the  effect 
made  upon  any  one  sitting  in  a  carriage,  by  "  a  pig 
scratching  itself  against  the  hind  wheel."  Their 
Swiss  friends,  M.  and  Madame  Moilliet,  accompanied 
them  as  far  as  Calais,  but  hastened  on  from  there 
to  their  home  in  Geneva,  while  the  Edgeworth  sisters 
pursued  their  way  to  Paris,  arriving  there  on  April  the 
29th,  1820. 

From  the  very  first  moment  of  their  appearance, 
that,  often  inconstant,  capital  seems  to  have  opened  its 
arms  widely  to  them.  "  Madame  Maria  Edgeworth  et 
les  demoiselles  ses  Soeurs^'  became  at  once  the  fashion, 
more  so  apparently  than  the  family  had  even  previously 
been  in  London.  Miss  Edgeworth's  own  excellent 
French  was  a  passport,  and  the  Abbe  Edgeworth  —  no 
longer  a  source  of  peril  or  suspicion  —  had  by  that  time 
become  the  object  of  a  special  cult  on  the  part  of  every 
faithful  Eoyalist.  Nearly  all  her  former  acquaint- 
ances seem  to  have  been  still  alive,  hardly  the  worse 
for  the  intervening  eighteen  years,  and  one  and  all 
eager  to  meet  and  to  greet  her  again.     Amongst  the 


156  MARIA  EDGE  WORTH  [chap. 

warmest  of  her  devotees  seem  to  have  been  the  whole 
of  the  French  royal  family.  She  tells  her  corre- 
spondents in  Ireland  that  the  Duchesse  de  Broglie, 
whom  she  met  at  the  Embassy  the  very  day  after  her 
arrival,  was  ''  quite  tender."  In  fact,  the  attentions  of 
the  great  at  times  became  a  trifle  troublesome,  and 
one  of  the  few  grumbles  we  find  in  her  letters  refers  to 
a  delightful  conversation  with  Humboldt,  in  the  course 
of  which  she  was,  she  says,  "  twice  called  away  to  be 
introduced  to  Grandeurs,  just  as  he  had  reached  the 
most  interesting  point !  "  A  lively  account  is  given  of 
a  supper  to  which  she  and  her  sisters  were  invited  by 
Cuvier,  at  the  College  de  France,  which  they  attained 
only  after  a  drive  of  agony  across  the  oldest  part  of 
the  city.  "  Such  streets  !  such  turns  !  lamps  strung  at 
great  distances ;  coach  and  cart  men  bawling  Ouais ! 
Ouais!  etc."  When  at  last  their  destination  was 
reached  —  "Cuvier  himself  came  down  to  the  carriage 
door  to  receive  us,  and  handed  us  up  the  narrow, 
difficult  stairs."  Upstairs  they  found  themselves 
landed  in  a  small  room,  filled  apparently  with  all 
the  talents.  "  Prony,  as  like  an  honest  water-dog 
as  ever;  Biot  (' et  mot  aussi  je  suis  p^re  de,  faniille'), 
a  fat,  double  volume  of  himself  —  I  could  not  see  a 
trace  of  the  young  jjh'e  de  faniiUe  we  knew  —  round- 
faced,  with  a  bald  head,  a  few  black  ringlets,  a  fine- 
boned  skull,  on  which  the  tortoise  might  fall  without 
cracking  it."  Presently  came  tea  and  supper  together. 
"  Only  two-thirds  of  the  company  could  sit  down,  but 
the  rest  stood  or  sat  behind,  and  were  very  happy. 
Biot  sat  behind  Fanny's  chair,  and  talked  of  the 
parallax  and  Dr.  Brinkley.  Prony,  with  his  hair 
nearly  in  my  plate,  was  telling  entertaining  anecdotes 


XI.]  PARIS  157 

of  Buonaparte,  while  Cuvier,  with  his  head  nearly 
meeting  him,  was  talking  as  hard  as  he  could."  Both 
of  them  assured  her  that  Buonaparte  '*  never  could 
bear  to  have  any  answer  but  a  decided  answer."  "  One 
day,"  said  Cuvier,  "  I  nearly  ruined  myself  by  con- 
sidering before  I  answered.  He  asked  me,  '  Faut-il 
introduire  le  sucre  de  betterave  en  France  ? '  '  D'abord, 
sire,  il  fant  songer  si  vos  colonies.  .  .  .'  '  Faut-il  avoir  le 
Sucre  de  betterave  en  France  V  'Mais,  Sire,  ilfaut  ex- 
aminer. .  .  .'  'Bah!  Je  le  demandeixii  cl Bei'tJiollet.' " 
Even  before  this  memorable  supper,  Miss  Edgeworth 
had  hastened  to  pay  a  visit  to  Madame  Kecanyer  in  her 
convent.  Although  less  rich  and  prosperous  than  of 
yore,  she  seems  to  have  been  still  surrounded  by  a 
remnant  at  least  of  her  former  Court.  The  ex-Queen 
of  Sweden  was  there,  having  been  invited  on  purpose 
to  meet  them.  Of  Madame  R^camier.  — "  She  has 
not  taken  the  veil  any  more  than  I  have,"  Miss 
Edgeworth  assures  her  correspondents,  rather,  one 
would  have  thought,  unnecessarily.  It  is  evident  that 
fully  half  of  her  own  pleasure  in  all  these  fine  doings 
consisted  in  the  enjoyment  of  her  sisters.  She 
chronicles,  with  all  a  mother's  fulness  of  detail,  the 
various  compliments  which  were  paid  to  them,  relating 
amongst  other  matters  that  their  debut  at  Lady 
Granard's  was  an  enormous  success,  and  that  their 
dresses  on  that  occasion  "  were  declared  by  the  best 
judges  to  be  perfection."  For  a  little  over  two 
months  the  three  sisters  remained  in  Paris,  seeing 
every  one  of  note  who  was  either  living  there  or  pass- 
ing through  it  during  the  time.  Then,  after  a  short 
visit  to  their  friend  Madame  Gautier  at  Passy,  they 
started  for  Switzerland,  to   pay  their   long  promised 


158  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

visit  to  M.  and  Madame  Moilliet,  reaching  Geneva  in 
the  beginning  of  August. 

The  house  in  which  they  there  found  themselves 
lodged  had  belonged  to  the  Empress  Josephine,  a  fact 
which  gave  it  a  certain  distinction.  That  it  also  com- 
manded excellent  views  of  the  lake  and  the  mountains 
was  another  commendable  point,  but  scarcely  perhaps 
one  of  equal  importance.  As  Miss  Edgeworth  herself 
put  it  in  one  of  her  letters,  "  Fanny  and  I  both  prefer 
society  —  good  society  —  to  fine  landscapes,  or  even  to 
volcanoes."  Upon  what  occasion  she  had  been  urged 
to  make  tJie  acquaintance  of  volcanoes  does  not  appear 
from  the  record  of  her  travels,  although  of  other  and 
more  desirable  acquaintances  there  was  undoubtedly 
no  lack,  Geneva  is  not  somehow  instinctively  associ- 
ated in  the  mind  with  brilliancy,  yet  there  seems  to 
have  been  enough  of  that  quality  at  this  period  in  and 
about  the  town,  to  have  supplied  half  a  dozen  other 
towns  of  its  size.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  JNIarcet ;  Arago  ;  De 
Candolle  the  botanist;  Von  Stein  ;  Sismondi  —  all  are 
considerable  names,  and  the  owners  of  all  five  were  at 
that  moment  to  be  found  in  or  near  Geneva.  Other 
people  of  scarcely  less  note  swelled  the  circle,  and 
with  all  these  the  sociable  Irish  sisters  seem  to  have 
been  upon  more  or  less  intimate  terms. 

After  leaving  Geneva  they  paid  a  visit  of  some 
length  to  Madame  de  Stael's  son  and  daughter-in-law  at 
Coppet  —  Madame  de  Stael  herself  had  died  a  few  years 
previously,  so  that  the  two  writers  unfortunately  never 
met.  Naturally  the  visitors  were  deeply  interested 
in  all  they  saw  and  heard  here,  and  not  least  in  the 
little  Eocca  boy,  Madame  de  Stael's  seldom  mentioned 
youngest  son.     He  is  described  by  Miss  Edgeworth  —  a 


XI.]  GENEVA  159 

judge  of  children  —  as  "an  odd,  cold,  prudent, old-man- 
sort  of  a  child,"  and  further  on  as  "  not  in  the  least 
like  Madame  de  Stael,  and  as  unlike  as  possible  to  a  son 
you  would  have  expected  from  such  parents."  From 
Coppet  they  returned  to  Geneva,  and  in  October  paid  a 
visit  to  Lyons,  a  town  which,  from  its  associations  with 
her  father.  Miss  Edgeworth  had  particularly  wished 
to  see.  By  the  end  of  October  the  three  sisters  were 
back  again  in  Paris,  where  they  settled  themselves 
into  an  appartement  garni,  with  a  valet  de  place,  a 
femme  de  charge,  and  all  else  becoming.  Here  they 
remained  for  another  three  months,  and  again  found 
themselves  meeting  and  being  received  by  every  one 
who  was  worth  the  knowing.  The  account  given  by 
Miss  Edgeworth  of  Madame  de  la  Eochejaquelein  — 
"  with  a  broad,  round,  fair  face  —  her  hair  cut  short 
and  perfectly  grey,  her  form  all  squashed  on  a  sofa," 
has  been  often  quoted.  "  Je  sais  que  je  detruis  toute 
illusion,"  the  poor  ci-devant  Vendean  heroine  was  in 
the  habit  of  saying  of  herself.  By  December  1820 
Maria  and  her  two  sisters  were  back  again  in  London, 
and  after  a  brief  stay  there,  another  visit  to  Bowood, 
and,  a  few  visits  to  Badminton,  Easton,  and  other 
houses  of  distinction,  they  reached  home  in  February 
1821. 

By  this  time  all  the  earlier  fuss  and  excitement 
over  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Edgeworth's  3femoir  had 
naturally  subsided.  Fortunately  for  herself  Miss 
Edgeworth  possessed,  moreover,  the  invaluable  qual- 
ity of  never  fretting  over  the  unalterable.  All  the 
doubts  and  anxieties  which  had  so  beset  her  while  the 
appearance  of  the  book  was  still  in  abeyance,  were  now 
at  rest.  —  "  You  would  scarcely  believe  the  calm,  and 


160  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

the  sort  of  satisfied  resignation  I  feel  as  to  my  father's 
life/'  she  wrote  to  her  stepmother  a  few  months  before 
her  return  home.  To  Mrs.  Euxton,  who  had  evidently 
been  seriously  upset  over  the  accusations  of  impiety  — 
"  Never  lose  another  night's  rest,  or  another  moment's 
thought,"  she  wrote,  "over  the  Quarterly  Review— 1 
have  not  read  it,  and  never  intend  to  read  it."  She 
had  done  her  best ;  she  believed  that  her  father,  could 
he  be  consulted  on  the  matter,  would  be  satisfied;  and 
that  was  enough.  It  was  characteristic  of  her  attitude 
towards  that  most  masterful  of  parents,  that  the 
first  task  she  set  herself  upon  her  return  home  was 
to  finish  the  sequel  of  Harry  and  Lucy,  a  work  which 
had  been  begun  by  him,  but  had  been  subsequently 
turned  over  to  his  daughter.  On  this  account  it  was 
a  sacred  legacy.  She  could  do  nothing  to  please  her- 
self, she  told  those  about  her,  till  that  was  done. 

The  winter  of  1821-22  found  her  and  her  two  sisters 
again  in  London,  seeing  old  friends,  or  making  the 
acquaintance  of  others  destined  in  the  course  of  time 
to  become  so.  She  described  to  her  correspondents 
at  considerable  length  the  scenes  which  she  saw  at 
Newgate,  under  Mrs.  Fry's  guidance.  She  took  her 
sisters  to  Almack's,  where,  while  they  danced,  she 
talked,  amongst  other  people,  to  Lord  Londonderry, 
who  assured  her  that  he  had  long  desired  the  privilege 
of  meeting  her;  an  awed  circle  meanwhile  standing 
round  the  minister  and  the  lady  whom  he  selected  to 
honour.  She  became  intimate  with  Mrs.  Somerville,  the 
astronomer,  of  whom  she  prettily  said  that  "  while  her 
head  is  amongst  the  stars,  her  two  feet  are  firm  upon 
the  earth."  She  saw  IVIrs.  Siddons  twice,  once  in 
"Lady  Macbeth  " ;  she  paid  a  variety  of  pleasant  visits; 


SI.]  GENEVA  161 

finally  returned  home  again  in  June  1822 ;  from  which 
date  there  appear  to  be  no  further  visits  nor  any  other 
special  events  to  chronicle,  till  we  come  to  the  visit 
that  was  the  most  important  of  her  life,  the  one  which 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  most  memorable  by  far  of 
her  many  friendships. 


H 


CHAPTER  XII 

FRIENDSHIP    WITH   SCOTT 

It  was  in  May  1823  that  Miss  Edgeworth  again  set 
forth  from  Edgeworthstown,  taking  with  her  this  time 
Harriet,  and  the  third  of  her  young  half-sisters,  Sophy. 
Scotland,  not  the  Continent,  was  on  this  occasion  the 
bourne  of  their  pilgrimage,  and  above  and  beyond 
everything  else  in  Scotland,  Abbotsford  and  its  owner. 
Nor  had  their  feet  been  many  days  upon  Scottish  soil 
before  that  encounter  took  place.  It  was  character- 
istic of  both  authors  —  highly  creditable,  I  add,  to  the 
Irish  one  —  that  nothing,  not  that  most  primitive  of 
feminine  necessities,  the  necessity  of  appearing  respect- 
ably clad  before  a  distinguished  circle  of  strangers, 
was  able  to  delay  the  meeting  even  for  a  few  hours. 
Miss  Edgeworth  tells  her  correspondents  how  it  all 
happened.  She  and  her  sisters  had  barely  reached 
their  Edinburgh  lodgings,  unpacked,  or  begun  to  un- 
pack, before  she  received  a  note  from  Sir  Walter 
himself.  An  arrangement  had  previously  been  made 
by  which  they  were  to  dine  first  with  their  old  friends, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alison,  and  the  note  was  simply  to 
confirm  that  arrangement,  and  further,  to  invite  them 
to  dine  with  the  Scotts  upon  the  Sunday  following 
at  five,  upon  which  occasion,  or  upon  the  next  day, 
Monday,    "one  or  two  of  the  Northern  lights"  had 

1G2 


CHAP.  XII.]        FRIENDSHIP  WITH  SCOTT  163 

been  especially  invited,  Sir  Walter  tells  her,  to  meet 
them.  The  letter  ended  —  "Respectfully  yours," 
but  the  real  gist  of  it  lay  in  the  postscript,  which 
went  on  to  relate  that  the  Laird  of  Staffa,  and  cer- 
tain of  his  clansmen,  were  coming  to  sing  Highland 
boat-songs  that  very  evening :  — "  and  if  you  will 
come,  as  the  Irish  should  to  the  Scotch,  without  any 
ceremony,  you  will  hear  what  is  perhaps  more  curious 
than  mellifluous.  The  man  returns  to  the  Isles  to- 
morrow. There  are  no  strangers  with  us ;  no  party  ; 
none  but  our  own  family,  and  two  old  friends." 

"  Ten  o'clock  struck,"  writes  Miss  Edgeworth,  "  as  I  read 
this  note.  We  were  tired ;  we  were  not  fit  to  be  seen,  but 
...  I  sent  for  a  hackney  coach,  and  just  as  we  were,  without 
dressing,  we  went.  As  the  coach  stopped,  we  saw  the  hall 
lighted,  and  the  moment  the  door  opened,  heard  the  joyous 
sounds  of  loud  singing.  Three  servants  — '  The  Miss  Edge- 
worths  ! '  sounded  from  hall  to  landing-place  ;  and  as  I  paused 
for  a  moment  in  the  ante-room,  I  heard  the  first  sound  of 
Walter  Scott's  voice  — '  The  Miss  Edgeworths  ?  —  come  ! '  " 

In  this  manner  the  eventful  meeting  took  place, 
and  the  friendship  between  these  two  —  great  man 
and  little  lady  —  seems  to  have  grown  to  its  full 
height  literally  at  their  first  hand-clasp.  It  was  al- 
ready, it  must  be  remembered,  a  pretty  old  and 
intimate  one,  so  far  as  correspondence  can  be  said 
to  create  intimacy.  Now  all  unnecessary  prelimina- 
ries were  waived,  and  the  acquaintanceship  became 
friendship  almost  in  a  single  evening :  — 

"  My  first  impression  was  that  he  (Su-  Walter)  was  neither 
so  large  or  so  heavy  as  I  had  been  led  to  expect  from  descrip- 
tions, prints,  busts,  and  pictures.  He  is  more  lame,  on  the 
other  hand,  than  I  expected,  but  not  unwieldy." 


164  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

The  Gaelic  singing  is  next  described  by  Miss  Edge- 
worth  at  some  length,  after  which  followed  supper :  — 

"  As  I  sat  beside  him,  I  could  not  believe  that  he  was  a 
stranger,  and  I  quite  forgot  that  he  was  a  great  man." 

So  ended  that  momentous  first  evening,  and  — 

"  When  we  wakened  in  the  morning,  the  whole  scene  of 
the  preceding  night  seemed  like  a  dream !  However,  at 
twelve  came  the  real  Lady  Scott,  and  we  called  for  Scott 
at  the  Parliament  House,  who  came  out  of  the  Courts  with 
a  joyous  face,  as  if  he  had  nothing  on  earth  to  do,  or  to 
think  of,  but  to  show  us  Edinburgh." 

For  the  other  side  of  the  same  story  we  should  have 
to  turn  to  the  pages  of  Lockhart,  or  to  Scott's  own 
familiar  letters.  In  one  of  these  he  describes  at 
some  length  the  effect  produced  upon  Edinburgh 
the  critical  by  the  ''  lioness,"  as  he  calls  her,  adding 
on  his  own  account,  that  he  found  her  "  full  of  fun 
and  spirit ;  a  little  slight  figure,  very  active,  very 
good-humoured,  and  full  of  enthusiasm."  For  the 
benefit  of  those  to  whom  Miss  Edgeworth  exists  only 
as  the  painstaking  but  prosaic  instructress  of  youth, 
it  may  be  well  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  Scott's  ad- 
miration for  her  was  no  temporary  bit  of  amiability, 
born  of  good-nature,  but  the  genuine  conviction  of  his 
whole  literary  life.  The  continual  allusions  to  her 
writings  which  occur  in  his  private  letters,  no  less 
than  the  unstinted  praise  lavished  upon  them  in  print, 
all  show  upon  how  high  a  pedestal  he  placed  her  as 
an  author.  When,  to  this  impersonal  homage,  personal 
acquaintanceship  was  added,  it  is  clear  that  his  previous 
disposition  in  her  favour  soon  ripened  into  something 
warmer  and  even  friendlier.     He  found  the  woman,  in 


XII.]  FRIENDSHIP  WITH  SCOTT  165 

short  —  as  all  her  aquaintance  did  find  her  —  not  only 
as  well  worth  knowing  as  her  books,  but  very  much 
more  so.  There  was  about  the  little  Irish  "  lioness  " 
a  play  of  humour,  a  total  absence  of  the  attitude  of 
the  preacher,  or  the  moralist,  which  might  not  have 
been  predicted  from  the  study  of  her  "  works  "  alone. 
She  "  sat  lightly,"  as  we  nowadays  put  it,  to  life  in 
general,  including  —  more  particularly  including  —  her 
own  pretensions  as  an  authoress. 

This  lightness  of  touch  is  just  one  of  the  points  in 
which  these  two  writers,  major  and  minor,  show  an 
unmistakable  touch  of  kinship.  It  has  been  seen  how 
mockingly  Miss  Edgeworth  repelled  the  very  idea  that 
any  of  her  own  efforts  could  be  expected  to  detain  for 
more  than  a  moment  the  attention  of  serious  folk.  In 
the  case  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  it  is  more  difficult  to  realise 
the  same  point  of  view,  recalling  the  well-nigh  abject 
admiration  of  which  he  was  in  his  own  lifetime  the 
subject.  That  he  did  hold  it,  is  none  the  less  fairly 
certain.  Eomance  —  the  thing  itself,  the  eternal,  the 
adorable  —  was  from  boyhood  very  bone  of  his  bone, 
very  flesh  of  his  flesh ;  but  romance,  in  the  sense  of  his 
own  printed  books,  seems  never  to  have  been  for  Scott 
the  foremost,  or  even  one  of  the  more  important  ele- 
ments of  existence.  Abbotsford  and  its  adornments ;  his 
own  and  his  heirs'  position  as  county  magnates  of  the 
secondary  class  ;  his  multifarious  obligations  as  a  good 
friend,  a  good  neighbour,  a  good  Tory,  and  a  good 
Scotsman  —  these,  and  a  host  of  similar  matters,  stood 
far  higher  in  his  estimation  than  did  ever  his  own 
books,  or  his  own  position  as  an  author. 

Meanwhile  Sunday  came  in  due  course,  and  with  it 
arrived  the  three  Miss  Edgeworths  —  the  younger  ones 


166  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

presumably  in  muslin  frocks  and  sandals — to  dine  with 
Sir  Walter  and  Lady  Scott.  .  .  .  "  I  sat  beside  Scott, 
and  I  dare  not  even  attempt  to  think  of  any  of  the 
anecdotes  he  told,  or  the  fragments  of  poetry  he  re- 
peated, lest  I  should  be  tempted  to  write  them  down 
for  you,  and  should  never  end  this  letter,"  Maria  writes 
to  her  aunt.  "  Quentin  Durivard,"  she  adds,  "  was  lying 
on  the  drawing-room  table,  and  Mrs.  Skene  took  it  up 
and  said,  *  This  is  really  too  barefaced.'  A  few  days 
before  that,  Sir  Walter,  pointing  to  the  hospital  built 
by  Heriot,  had  remarked,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye, 
'  That  was  built  by  one  Heriot,  you  know,  the  jeweller 
in  Charl'es  the  Second's  time.' "  The  secret  of  secrets 
was  thus,  we  see,  ostensibly  kept  up,  though  little  or 
no  mystery  remained  around  it  by  this  time  for  any- 
body. 

The  next  event  in  the  programme  seems  to  have 
been  a  visit  to  Koslin  Castle,  to  which  they  were 
escorted  by  the  Romancer  in  person.  "It  is  about 
seven  miles  from  Edinburgh,  and  I  wished  it  had  been 
twice  as  far."  "  How  Walter  Scott  can  find  time  to 
write  all  he  writes,"  Miss  Edgeworth  adds,  "  I  cannot 
conceive.  He  appears  to  have  nothing  to  think  of 
but  to  be  amusing."  Yet  this  was  the  summer  of  1823, 
only  two  years,  therefore,  before  the  great  collapse. 

Previous  to  their  leaving  Edgeworthstown  it  had 
been  arranged  that  this  visit  to  Scotland  was  to  include 
one  to  the  Highlands.  Thither,  shortly  afterwards, 
the  sisters  accordingly  departed,  being  joined  on  the 
way  by  their  engineer  brother,  William,  for  whom  — 
not  mountains,  lakes,  or  poets  —  but  the  dredging  opera- 
tions upon  the  Caledonian  Canal  were  the  main  attrac- 
tion.    They  spent  a  day  much  to  their  satisfaction  at 


XII.]  FRIENDSHIP  WITH  SCOTT  167 

Fern  Tower,  with  Sir  David  and  Lady  Baird  —  "a  fine 
old  soldier,  without  an  arm,  but  with  a  heart  and  a 
head.  .  .  .  He  swallows  me,  though  an  authoress, 
wonderfully  well,"  writes  Miss  Edgeworth.  She  caught 
a  bad  cold  on  the  way  to  Inverness,  which  turned  to 
erysipelas,  and  alarmed  her  sisters.  They  found  a 
good  doctor,  however,  at  Forres,  and  a  good  inn,  and 
after  a  while  she  got  better,  and  they  were  able  to 
start  again.  Like  scores  of  faithful  travellers  who 
have  followed  in  their  footsteps,  they  walked  the 
heather  with  Marmion,  Waverley,  or  Rob  Boy,  as  the 
case  might  be,  in  their  hands.  By  the  month  of 
August  they  were  back  again  in  Edinburgh,  within 
easy  reach  of  the  progenitor  of  these  heroes,  and  now 
came  the  crowning  joy  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  trip  — 
perhaps  of  her  life  —  a  fortnight  at  Abbotsford. 

The  weather  had  been  very  wet  during  their  trip  to 
the  Highlands,  but  it  mended  magically  as  they  reached 
their  destination,  and  the  whole  party  rejoiced  at  the 
summer  having  at  last  appeared.  "My  daughter 
Sophy  " — this  is  an  extract  from  the  Edgeworth  family 
record  —  "  mentioned  the  Irish  tune,  '  You've  brought 
the  Summer  with  you,'  and  repeated  the  first  line  of 
Moore's  words  adapted  to  it.  *  How  pretty ! '  said 
Sir  Walter.  'Moore's  the  man  for  songs;  Campbell 
can  write  an  ode,  and  I  can  make  a  ballad,  but  Moore 
beats  us  all  at  a  song.'  " 

In  this  fashion  the  visit  began,  and  for  an  enchanted 
fortnight  so  it  continued.  Even  Lockhart  —  by  no 
means  the  man  for  violent  or  heady  enthusiasms  — 
grows  quite  lyrical  when  he  comes  to  describe  that 
halcyon  fortnight.  "August  1823,"  he  writes,  "was 
one  of  the  happiest  in  Scott's  life.     Never  did  I  see 


168  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

a  brighter  day  at  Abbots  ford  than  that  on  which 
Miss  Edgeworth  arrived  there.  Never  can  I  forget 
her  look  and  accent  when  she  was  received  by  him 
at  his  archway,  and  exclaimed:  'Everything  about 
you  is  exactly  what  one  ought  to  have  had  wit  enough 
to  dream ! '  .  .  .  Day  after  day,  as  long  as  she  could 
remain,  her  host  had  always  some  new  plan  of  gaiety. 
One  day  there  was  fishing  on  the  Cauldshields  Loch, 
and  a  dinner  on  the  heathy  bank.  Another,  the  whole 
party  feasted  by  Thomas  the  Rhymer's  waterfall  in 
the  glen ;  and  the  stone  on  which  '  Maria '  sat  that 
day  was  ever  afterwards  called  '  Edgeworth's  Stone.' 
.  .  .  Thus  a  fortnight  was  passed  —  and  then  the 
vision  closed.  Miss  Edgeworth  never  saw  Abbotsford 
again." 

If  the  cold  and  critical  Lockhart  could  break  forth 
into  such  a  strain  as  this,  little  wonder  if  the  pens 
of  more  impressionable  people  fairly  brimmed  over  and 
sputtered  with  delight  and  excitement !  The  letters 
which  record  this  visit  from  the  Edgeworth  side  have, 
however,  all  been  published,  whereas  there  are  several 
dealing  with  Sir  Walter's  visit  to  Edgeworthstown 
which  have  not  yet  seen  the  light.  It  seems  better, 
therefore,  to  pass  on,  and  resist  the  temptation  to 
linger  any  longer  over  these  Scottish  experiences.  It 
was  upon  the  twelfth  of  August  that  the  three  sisters 
left  Abbotsford,  and,  after  a  short  visit  to  some  friends 
near  Glasgow,  they  returned  to  Ireland. 

A  letter  from  Sir  Walter  Scott,  bearing  the  date  of 
the  22nd  of  September,  seems  to  show  that  Miss  Edge- 
worth  was  by  that  time  at  Edgeworthstown.  "I  con- 
clude," he  writes,  "  that  you  are  now  settled  quietly  at 
home,  and  looking  back  on  recollections  of  mountains 


XII.]  FRIENDSHIP  WITH  SCOTT  169 

and  valleys,  of  pipes  and  clans  and  cousins,  masons  and 
carpenters,  and  puppy-dogs,  and  all  tlie  confusion  of 
Abbotsf  ord,  as  one  does  on  the  recollections  of  a  dream. 
We  shall  not  easily  forget  the  vision  of  having  seen 
you,  .  .  .  and  your  kind  indulgence  for  all  our 
humours,  sober  and  fantastic,  rough  or  smooth." 

Exactly  two  years  later,  in  the  same  month  of 
August,  only  in  the  year  1825,  followed  the  return 
visit.  Captain  Scott,  Sir  Walter's  eldest  son,  was 
settled  for  the  moment  with  his  well-dowered  bride 
in  Dublin,  where  the  regiment  to  which  he  belonged 
was  then  quartered.  It  was  the  wish  to  see  this 
young  couple  which  took  Sir  Walter  in  the  first  in- 
stance to  Ireland,  but  that  the  visit  to  Edgeworths- 
town  had  from  the  beginning  filled  a  considerable 
place  in  his  plans  is  clear.  The  following  letters, 
descriptive  of  that  visit,  are  not  by  Maria  Edgeworth, 
but  by  one  of  her  younger  sisters.  They  are,  however, 
so  vivid,  and  so  full  of  fresh  detail,  as  to  seem  well 
worth  rescuing  from  oblivion.  The  "  Mr.  Crampton  " 
mentioned,  it  may  be  well  to  explain,  was  the  well- 
known  Dublin  physician,  still  better  known  after- 
wards as  Sir  Philip  Crampton.  He  is  described  by 
Lockhart  as  having  upon  this  occasion  "  equally 
gratified  both  the  novelists  by  breaking  the  toils  of  his 
great  practice  in  order  to  witness  their  meeting  upon 
his  native  shore." 

"  Edgeworthstown,  Saturday,  July  30,  1825. 

"  We  were  all  happily  dressed  and  in  the  library 
before  half-past  six,  when  a  German  barouche  drove  to 
the  door  containing  Sir  Walter,  Miss  Scott,  and  Mr. 
Crampton,  apologising  for  the  remainder  of  the  party, 


170  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

"who  would  come  in  the  evening,  Captain  Scott  being 
detained  by  some  military  duty.  The  first  sight  was 
all  dust,  their  coats,  hair,  and  eyebrows  all  powdered 
over.  Miss  Scott's  black  hair  quite  white.  The  first 
surprise  I  felt  about  Sir  Walter  was  —  'how  very 
lame  he  is.'  .  .  . 

"  There  was  a  little  conversation  about  County  of 
Wicklow  beauties,  with  which  they  were  very  much 
pleased,  before  dinner,  and  at  dinner  a  good  deal  of 
talk  of  various  kinds.  Mr.  Jephson,  Mr.  Crampton,  Sir 
Walter,  and  Maria  were  the  chief  speakers,  but  I  confess 
I  did  not  hear  much,  for  Sir  Walter  speaks  low,  and  till 
one  becomes  used  to  his  tone  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
him ;  besides,  my  attention  was  somewhat  divided  by 
Miss  Scott,  who  sat  at  our  end  of  the  table,  and  who 
was  very  conversible.  She  is  a  fine-looking,  black-eyed, 
bright,  happy-looking  girl.  Just  as  the  ladies  left  the 
dining-room,  the  school  band  was  heard  at  a  distance, 
and  as  it  approached  playing  a  gay  tune,  it  excited 
Miss  Scott's  and  Crampton's  spirits  of  dancing  so  much 
that  they  flew  out  on  the  grass-plot,  and  made  Harriet 
join  them  in  a  reel.  The  boys  at  a  distance  were 
playing  leap-frog ;  Sir  Walter  stood  benevolently  look- 
ing on.  As  the  light  was  by  this  time  more  from  the 
clear  moon  than  from  any  remains  of  daylight,  it  did 
look  very  picturesque  and  gay,  and  it  was  late  before 
we  could  come  in  from  the  dewy  air.  We  then  all 
assembled  in  the  library.  Sir  Walter  sat  down  near 
Aunt  Mary,  so  that  she  could  hear  his  voice,  and  he 
and  Mr.  Jephson  and  Maria  talked  of  Dr.  Johnson 
and  Boswell,  of  whom  Sir  Walter  told  some  good 
stories;  and  then  somehow  or  other  there  was  a  sud- 
den turn  to  the  subject  of  mad  dogs  and  hydrophobia ; 


XII.]  FRIENDSHIP  WITH  SCOTT  171 

some  doubts  of  the  reality  of  the  disease  being  uttered 
by  Sir  Walter,  Mr.  Crampton  told  some  very  inter- 
esting facts  of  cases  where  hydrophobia  had  been 
brought  on  when  the  imagination  could  have  had  no 
influence,  and  mentioned  a  fact  which  I  do  not  remem- 
ber ever  hearing  before,  that  the  disease  breaks  out 
spontaneously  in  man,  and  that  it  is  in  reality  a  con- 
tagious disease  to  which  wolves,  foxes,  cats,  dogs,  and 
men  are  subject.  While  this  conversation  was  still 
going  on,  the  remainder  of  the  party,  Captain  and 
Mrs.  Scott  and  Mr.  Lockhart  arrived,  three  very 
pretty  (!)  people.  Mrs.  Scott  pretty,  but  unfashioned, 
and  very  silent.  Captain  Scott  very  handsome  and 
tall,  and  much  less  shy  than  I  expected.  He  seems  to 
have  a  great  deal  of  humour  in  a  quiet  way  of  his 
own.  Mr.  Lockhart  handsome  and  clever-looking,  but 
much  less  tremendous  than  I  expected.  They  stood 
and  talked  and  eat  a  little  supper,  and  by  degrees  all 
were  housed  in  bed. 

"  This  morning  has  been  chiefly  spent  in  sitting  keep- 
ing ourselves  as  cool  as  possible,  with  the  thermometer 
nearly  80  in  the  library,  where  Mr.  Crampton,  Mr. 
Jephson,  and  Sir  Walter  have  been  telling  anecdotes 
d  Venvie,  Vun  de  Vautre.  It  would  be  vain,  even  if 
I  could  do  them  justice  in  the  telling,  to  attempt 
to  repeat  them,  as  the  tone  of  voice,  manner,  and 
countenance  would  be  still  wanting.  Sir  Walter  gave 
us  a  very  pleasing  account  of  Marshal  Macdonald,  not 
at  all  like  a  soldier  in  looks,  slight  and  delicate  in 
appearance,  but  his  conduct  seems  to  have  been  much 
more  steady  than  any  of  the  other  generals.  When 
Napoleon  went  to  Elba,  at  the  restoration  of  the  Bour- 
bons he  swore  allegiance  to  Lewis  f  when  Buonaparte 


172  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap, 

reappeared,  and  all  hurried  to  return  to  him,  Macdonald 
was  steady  to  the  King  and  followed  him,  —  upon 
hearing  which  Buonaparte  exclaimed,  '  That 's  like 
Macdonald,  always  the  last  to  forsake  his  friends.' 
Ney  accused  Macdonald  of  ingratitude  for  not  abiding 
by  Buonaparte,  to  which  he  answered,  'Ney,  it  is  not 
for  you  to  teach  me  what  is  honour  or  duty.' " 

This  fragment  of  conversation  strikes  one  as  having 
undergone  a  certain  amount  of  blunting  in  the  course 
of  reporting.  The  following  description  of  Scott's 
personal  appearance  is,  on  the  other  hand,  excellent,  the 
writer  having  been  herself  a  competent  artist.  The 
original  manuscript  letter  is  decorated  with  various 
little  pencil  sketches  of  the  illustrious  guest,  full  of 
character,  and  unmistakable  as  likenesses :  — 

"  The  first  print  I  ever  saw  of  Sir  Walter  —  the  one 
with  his  dog  —  is  like  him,  I  think,  but  the  others 
represent  him  as  much  younger  than  he  is  now,  and 
without  the  sort  of  roughness  mixed  with  polish, 
which  appears  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  great  character- 
istics of  his  appearance.  He  is  now  very  grey,  and  at 
first  looked  to  me  uncommonly  grave,  but  the  humour 
in  his  eyebrow  soon  showed  itself,  and  when  he  listens 
to  what  amuses  him,  or  when  he  is  telling  one  of  his 
favourite  anecdotes,  his  countenance  is  quite  delightful, 
and  — except  when  standing  or  walking,  when  his  lame- 
ness appears  so  much  more  than  I  had  been  prepared 
for  —  his  attitudes  are  all  picturesque  from  their 
peculiar  ease.  I  wished  very  much  to  take  a  sketch  of 
him,  but,  when  I  could  have  done  so  without  his  sus- 
pecting me,  his  daughter  Avas  too  near  for  me  to 
venture." 


XII.]  FRIENDSHIP  ^VITH   SCOTT  173 

Venture,  however,  the  writer  did,  as  I  can  personally 
vouch,  although  the  sketches  made  were  only  of  the 
thumb-nail  order.  Upon  the  all-engrossing  subject  of 
the  authorship  of  the  novels,  some  mystification  seems 
to  have  been  still  kept  up,  although  between  Miss  Edge- 
worth  and  Sir  Walter  it  had  evidently  long  been  tacitly 
dropped.  Her  sister  Honora's  report  of  the  matter 
runs  as  fellows :  —  "  Once  in  speaking  of  a  masquerade, 
Sir  Walter  said  that  one  man  was  dressed  as  Ivanhoe. 
This  was  the  only  direct  mention  I  heard  him  make  of 
his  works,  but  those  who  know  him  bstter  say  that  he 
is  continually  making  allusions  to  them,  and  his  con- 
versation is  so  very  like  them,  that  if  one  had  doubts 
before,  one  could  not  after  listening  to  him.  I  was 
much  amused  with  a  little  dialogue  which  passed 
between  Mr.  Jephson,  Maria,  and  Sir  Walter,  when 
each  came  so  near  without  actually  touching  the 
tender  point.  It  began  very  far  off  about  Wilkes  and 
his  character,  and  Burke,  several  anecdotes  of  whom 
were  told  by  Mr.  Jephson ;  from  thence  the  transition 
was  easy  to  Junius's  letters,  which  Mr.  Jephson  said 
he  had  read  over  lately,  and  was  surprised  to  find 
how  inferior  they  now  appeared  to  him  from  what  he 
had  thought  them  formerly.  Then,  most  naturally,  the 
well-kept  secret  of  their  author  was  talked  of.  The 
idea  of  Sir  Philip  Francis  being  the  author.  Sir  Walter 
said,  was  so  Avell  supported  by  Mr.  Jeffrey  in  one  of  the 
Edinburgh  Reviews,  that  he  was  convinced  by  the  facts 
there  stated,  till,  some  time  afterwards,  in  talking  of 
it  to  Jeffrey,  he  said,  'I  was  perfectly  convinced  of 
his  being  the  man  when  I  wrote  that  review,  but 
since,  facts  have  come  out  which  make  one  doubt.' 
Mr.  Jephson  said  that  he  had  heard  no  one  ventured  to 


174  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

ask  the  straightforward  question ;  '  indeed,'  added  he, 
'  there  are  some  questions  which  no  man  has  any  right 
to  ask,  and  the  refusal  to  answer  which  truly,  cannot 
be  imputed  to  any  one  as  a  crime.'  '  Yes,'  said  Maria, 
*  there  are  many  cases  in  which  it  is  scarcely  possible 
to  answer  truly  —  if  you  are  trusted  by  another,  for 
instance.'  '  To  be  sure,'  said  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  '  sup- 
pose a  robber  took  your  money  from  your  pocket,  and 
then  asked  if  you  had  any  more  about  you,  and  that 
you  had  £100  in  your  bosom,  are  you  bound  to  tell 
him  so  ?  No ;  every  man  has  a  right  to  judge  what 
questions  he  should  or  should  not  answer.' " 

"  Sunday,  July  31,  1825. 

"It  takes  a  long  time  to  tell  badly  on  paper  what 
is  told  in  a  minute  so  well  by  the  '  taleteller,'  as  Sir 
Walter  calls  himself.  Dinner  went  off  well,  at  least  / 
think  so,  for  the  fates  were  so  kind  as  to  place  me 
beside  Sir  Walter,  who  did  not  seem  to  consider  me 
beneath  his  notice,  but  bestowed  upon  me  a  great  deal 
of  his  conversation.  It  happened  to  turn  a  good  deal 
upon  trials  and  executions.  He  says  he  never  saw  any 
one  on  trial  conducthimself  with  such  perfect  composure 
as  Thistle  wood ;  he  watched  him  the  whole  time,  and 
never  saw  his  eye  quail  for  a  moment.  After  dinner 
my  mother  accomplished  what  she  had  been  waiting 
for  all  the  evening.  She  took  Sir  Walter  to  Lucy  ^ 
for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  he  was  very  kind, 
and  spoke  just  enough  to  show  his  manner,  and  to 
delight  her  more  with  him  than  even  our  descriptions 
could  have  done.  He  made  his  adieux  at  night  to  all  of 
us  who  were  not  to  see  him  next  morning,  and  we  all 

1  The  invalid  sister. 


XII.]  FRIENDSHIP  WITH  SCOTT  175 

retired  very  late.  They  were  to  set  out  at  seven,  but 
it  was  eight  before  they  were  off,  and  Maria  and 
Harriet  actually  went  with  them,  a  fact  which  I  did 
not  believe  would  take  place  till  I  saw  them  in  the 
carriages.  Captain  and  Mrs.  Scott  had  a  chaise ;  Maria 
started  with  Mrs.  Scott,  Harriet  with  Sir  Walter  and 
Miss  Scott,  in  his  German  barouche.  To  complete 
their  good  fortune  the  weather  changed  from  the 
great  heat  and  bright  sun,  to  a  cooler  atmosphere 
and  greyer  sky,  softened  by  a  few  showers  the  night 
before,  and  has  not  yet  broken  up  with  torrents  of 
rain,  as  I  feared  it  would,  whenever  a  change  took 
place.  If  the  farmers  will  forgive  me  for  wishing  it, 
I  must  wish  that  the  rain  may  still  remain  suspended 
over  our  heads  for  one  week  till  they  have  seen 
Killarney,  but  to-day  is  very  threatening,  and  I  cannot 
but  fear." 

For  what  happened  after  they  left  Edgeworthstown, 
we  have  again  to  fall  back  upon  Lockhart.  In  his 
Life  of  Scott  the  visit  to  Edgeworthstown  will  be  found 
fully  reported  from  his  own  point  of  view;  he  next 
goes  on  :  —  "  Miss  Edgeworth,  her  sister  Harriet,  and 
her  brother  William,  were  easily  persuaded  to  join  our 
party  for  the  rest  of  our  Irish  travels.  We  had  lingered 
a  week  at  Edgeworthstown,  and  were  now  anxious 
to  make  the  best  of  our  way  towards  the  Lakes  of 
Killarney ;  but  posting  was  not  to  be  very  rapidly 
accomplished  in  those  regions  by  so  large  a  company 
as  had  now  collected,  and  we  were  more  agreeably 
delayed  by  the  hospitalities  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  old 
friends,  and  several  of  Sir  Walter's  new  ones." 

Hospitality  may  have  its  drawbacks,  and  Lockhart 


176  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

was  not  the  man  to  minimise  them  !  "  Irish  country 
houses,"  he  remarks,  "  appear  to  have  been  constructed 
upon  the  principle  of  the  Peri  Ban  on' s  tent.  They 
seemed  all  to  have  room  not  only  for  the  lion  and 
lioness,  and  their  respective  tails,  but  for  all  in  the 
neighbourhood  who  could  be  held  worthy  to  inspect 
them  at  feeding-time."  As  the  party  advanced  south 
the  poverty  of  the  country  began  to  grow  more  and 
more  apparent,  until  even  Sir  Walter  found  himself 
constrained  to  admit  that  the  state  of  affairs  was 
not  quite  so  roseate  as  it  had  seemed  when,  writing 
from  Edgeworthstown  a  week  earlier,  he  had  declared 
that,  "  in  sober  sadness,  to  talk  of  the  misery  of  Ireland 
is  to  speak  of  the  illness  of  a  malade  imaginaire.  Well 
she  is  not,  but  she  is  rapidly  becoming  so."  From 
Lockhart's  account  it  is  evident  that  even  this  most 
rooted  of  optimists  was  forced  by  degrees  to  accept 
the  evidence  of  his  own  senses.  "  As  we  moved  deeper 
into  the  country,"  his  son-in-law  writes,  "  there  was  a 
melancholy  in  his  countenance,  and,  despite  himself, 
in  the  tone  of  his  voice,  which  I  for  one  could  not 
mistake."  Fortunately,  as  rarely  fails  to  be  the  case 
in  Ireland,  there  was  no  lack  of  humorous  incidents 
to  break  in  upon  and  qualify  this  gloom.  At  one 
house,  where  they  had  been  advised  to  seek  for 
hospitality,  they  found  upon  their  arrival  that  the 
master  of  it  had  died  only  the  day  before.  To  the 
inn,  to  which  they  had  thereupon  hastily  retired,  they 
were  followed  by  a  note  from  the  sorrowing  widow, 
confirming   the   sad  intelligence,  and  adding   that  — 

"Mrs. the  more  regrets  it,  since  it  will  prevent 

her  from  having  the  honour  to  see  Sir  Walter  Scott 
and  Miss  Edgeworth !  " 


XII.]  FRIENDSHIP   WITH  SCOTT  177 

A  few  days  earlier,  at  Limerick,  a  poetical  encounter 
took  place  whicli  is  thus  described  by  Lockhart :  — 

"  Amidst  the  ringing  of  all  the  bells,  in  honour  of  our 
advent,  there  was  ushered  in  a  brother-poet,  who  must  needs 
pay  his  personal  respects  to  the  author  of  Marmion.  He  was 
a  scarecrow  figure  —  attired  much  in  the  fashion  of  the 
sirugglers  —  by  name  O'Kelly;  and  he  had  produced  on  the 
spur  of  the  occasion  this  modest  parody  of  Dryden's  famous 
epigram :  — 

'  Three  poets  of  three  different  nations  bom, 
The  United  Kingdom  in  this  age  adorn  ; 
Byron  of  England,  Scott  of  Scotia's  blood, 
And  Erin's  pride  —  O'Kelly,  great  and  good.' 

"  Sir  Walter's  five  shillings  were  at  once  forthcoming ;  and 
the  bard,  in  order  that  Miss  Edgeworth  might  display  equal 
generosity,  pointed  out,  in  a  little  volume  of  his  works  (for 
wiiich,  moreover,  we  had  all  to  subscribe)  this  pregnant 
couplet :  — 

'  Scott,  Morgan,  Edgeworth,  Byron,  prop  of  Greece, 
Are  characters  whose  fame  not  soon  wiU  cease.'  " 

To  incidents  of  the  road  like  these  Sir  Walter  and 
Miss  Edgeworth  were  always  ready  to  do  full  justice  ! 
If  Lockhart  liked  to  play  the  cynic,  and  to  wish  him- 
self elsewhere,  that  was  not  at  all  the  point  of  view 
of  the  "  lion  "  or  the  "  lioness."  At  the  inn  at  which 
they  stayed  in  Killarney  —  in  those  days  a  very  modest 
hostelry — Miss  Edgew^orth  found  such  a  number  of 
matters  to  admire,  that  Sir  Walter  himself  began  to 
mock  at  her  for  her  enthusiasm.  Of  a  certain  green 
baize  door  which  had  awakenedher  admiration —  "Miss 
Edgeworth,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "you  are  so 
mightily  pleased  with  that  door  that  I  think  you  will 
carry  it  away  with  you  to  Edgeworthstown  "  —  mild 

N 


178  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

little  jests,  hardly  worth  recording,  yet  which  appeal 
to  us,  somehow,  under  the  circumstances,  as  wiser 
and  wittier  sayings  might  hardly  do.  The  chief 
drawback  to  their  enjoyment  was  that  they  were 
forced  to  race  through  all  the  sights  at  headlong 
speed,  for  Sir  Walter  had  engaged  to  meet  Canning  at 
Windermere,  and  Captain  Scott's  leave  of  absence  was 
running  to  an  end.  At  Killarney  they  did  happily 
find  time  to  row  round  the  lakes,  as  we  know  from 
the  fact  that  the  boatman  who  rowed  them  on  that 
occasion  told  Lord  Macaulay,  twenty  years  later, 
that  his  having  done  so  had  actually  made  up  to 
him  for  *'  missing  a  hanging,"  which  took  place  upon 
the  same  day.  At  Cork,  to  which  they  drove  across 
the  hills,  a  reception  awaited  Sir  Walter  which  rivalled 
in  uproarious  acclamation  the  one  which  had  greeted 
his  arrival  in  Ireland.  Finally  the  whole  party  re- 
turned in  hot  haste  to  Dublin,  where  a  farewell  dinner 
took  place  at  Captain  and  Mrs.  Scott's  house,  one  at 
which  no  less  than  six  Edgeworths  —  four  sisters  and 
two  brothers  —  were  present. 

It  chanced  to  be  Sir  Walter  Scott's  birthday  —  his 
last  happy  one,  we  mentally  add  —  and  after  dinner 
all  present  drank  his  health  enthusiastically,  though 
"  with  more  feeling  than  gaiety,"  as  the  Edgeworth 
family  papers  appropriately  record.  Then  followed  the 
farewells  — deeply  regretful  ones,  upon  one  side,  at  any 
rate.  The  Edgeworths  returned  to  Edgeworthstown  ; 
Sir  Walter  sailed  for  Holyhead,  hastening  on  from 
there  to  Windermere,  where  Canning,  Wordsworth,  and 
himself  all  met  at  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Bolton.  Thence 
home  to  Abbotsford,  where  Lock  hart  informs  us  that 
"without  an  hour's  delay  Sir  Walter  returned  to  his 


XII.]  FRIENDSHIP  WITH  SCOTT  179 

usual  habits  of  life."  So  matters  went  on,  apparently 
prosperously,  for  another  three  or  four  months,  when 
two  little  scenes  took  place,  which  may  also  be  found 
recorded  in  the  pages  of  Lockhart.  The  first  of  these 
was  when  he  rode  over  himself  one  day  to  Abbotsford, 
bringing  with  him  the  news  that  Constable's  London 
banker  had  '•'  thrown  up  his  books."  The  next  was 
twelve  hours  later,  when,  in  the  cold  grey  of  the  follow- 
ing morning,  looking  out  of  his  bedroom  window,  he 
saw  "  the  Sheriff,"  as  he  called  his  father-in-law,  in  the 
act  of  dismounting  at  his  door,  and,  hurrying  down- 
stairs, ascertained  that  he  had  in  the  interval  taken 
a  night  journey  to  Polton,  in  order  personally  to  see 
and  to  confer  with  Constable.  It  was  the  beginning 
of  the  end.  Although  at  the  time  Scott  made  light  of 
the  affair,  and  although  his  own  diary — begun  about 
the  same  date — is  almost  unaccountably  reticent  on 
this  subject,  the  sense  of  impending  doom — of  gallant, 
ceaseless,  hopeless  struggle  —  never  again  lifts  till  the 
end  is  reached.  Looked  back  at  across  those  conclud- 
ing years,  these  sunshiny  days  in  Ireland,  this  visit  to 
Edgeworthstown,  these  various  light-hearted  jests  and 
jaunts,  stand  out  with  a  vividness,  a  sense  of  enjoy- 
ment and  serenity,  which  they  might  not  otherwise 
claim. 


CHAPTER   XIII 


LATER    LIFE 


This  intercourse  with  Scott,  these  travellings  together, 
and  this  final  parting  in  Dublin,  may  certainly  be  called 
the  highest  lights,  emotionally  speaking,  of  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  life.  To  delve  into  the  more  intimate  recesses 
of  one's  subject  is  frequently  held  to  be  a  prerogative 
of  biographers.  While  a  little  doubtful  as  to  there 
having  been  any  particular  recesses  in  this  case  to 
delve  into,  I  need  not  hesitate  to  express  my  con- 
viction that  Scott — the  man,  no  less  than  the  author 
—  stood  for  a  good  deal  more  in  Miss  Edgeworth's 
eyes  than  did  ever  that  very  shadowy  personage, 
M.  Edelcrantz.  Now  he  was  gone,  never,  so  Fate 
had  decreed,  to  be  seen  by  her  again.  The  two 
events,  with  all  their  delights  prospective  and  retro- 
spective— the  visit  to  Abbotsford,  the  return  visit  to 
EdgCAvorthstown  —  both  had  become  things  of  the 
past,  and  life  in  County  Longford  had  for  the  future 
to  resume  its  accustomed  placid  course. 

It  was  a  placidity  not  undiversified,  fortunately, 
with  pleasurable  incidents.  Miss  Edgeworth  had  still 
over  twenty  years  to  live,  and  another  successful  book 
to  write,  before  the  inevitable  end  came.  There  is  a 
characteristic  little  entry  in  a  letter  to  her  stepmother 
written  in  the  year  1834,  which  throws  a  good  deal 

180 


CHAP.  XIII.]  LATER  LITE  181 

of  light  both  upon  her  position  in  her  own  family,  and 
also  upon  her  outlook  on  life  in  general :  — 

"  This  morning  was  one  of  the  wettest  and  most  dismal  that 
your  Italian  son  Francis  ever  paled  at.  Nevertheless  with  us 
all  was  bright,  radiantly  bright.  The  sunshine  came  out  of 
the  post-box,  and  spread  fuU  upon  Honora  and  me  at  our 
coffee,  as  we  sat  tete-a-tete  in  her  room,  between  seven  and 
eight.  Your  delightful  accounts  of  Fanny  and  Lucy  "  (the 
two  invalids  of  the  moment)  "  are  more  inspiriting  than  all 
the  blue  skies  that  ever  I  saw.  Not  that  I  mean  to  affront 
blue  skies,  which  I  like  very  much  in  their  proper  places, 
poetry  inclusive,  but  they  never  affect  my  spirits  in  the 
wonderful  way  they  do  some  folks." 

"  In  their  proper  places  "  is  nice,  and  "  poetry  in- 
clusive "  goes  well  with  the  rest  of  the  passage ! 

"  Not  much  given  to  insist 
On  utilities  not  in  Utility's  list." 

So  Leigh  Hunt  had  written  of  Miss  Edgeworth  a  good 
many  years  before  in  his  Blue  Stocking  Revels.  Poetry 
and  blue  skies  were  evidently  amongst  those  non- 
utilitarian  utilities  which  she  was  always  perfectly 
prepared  as  a  good  philosopher  to  do  without.  If  it 
came  to  a  question  of  choice — "Company,  I  mean 
good  company,"  ranked  with  her,  as  we  have  seen, 
some  way  first.  Of  this,  the  one  solid  and  really 
indispensable  element  of  life,  she  seems  to  have  had 
during  those  later  years  enough  to  furbish  forth  tha 
lives  of  half  a  dozen  less  fortunately  circumstanced 
authors  and  authoresses.  In  a  letter  of  the  year  1826 
to  her  aunt  Mrs.  Ruxton,  she  writes :  — 

"  Yesterday  when  I  came  down  to  breakfast  I  found  Sir 
Humphry  Davy,  with  a  countenance  radiant  with  pleasure, 
eager  to  teU  me  that  Captain  Parry  is  to  be  sent  out  upon  a 


182  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

new  Polar  Expedition.  The  same  day  arrived  Leslie  Foster, 
on  his  way  to  Roscommon,  delighted  to  find  Sir  Humphry 
here ;  and  he  made  new  diversion  by  the  history  of  the  elec- 
tion, of  which  he  was  full.  He  looks  ten  years  older  and 
balder,  and  seemed  glad  to  find  a  resting-place  here  among 
friends." 

Another  letter,  written  in  September  1827  to  her 
cousin,  Sophy  Ruxton,  runs  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  day  before  yesterday  we  were  amusing  ourselves  by 
telling  who,  among  literary  and  scientific  people,  we  should 
wish  to  come  here  next  day.  Francis  said  Coleridge ;  I  said 
Herschel.  Yesterday  morning,  as  I  was  returning  from  my 
morning  walk  at  half-past  eight,  I  saw  a  bonnetless  maid 
on  the  walk,  with  letter  in  hand,  in  search  of  me.  When  I 
opened  the  letter,  I  found  it  was  from  Mr.  Herschel !  and  that 
he  was  waiting  for  an  answer  at  Mr.  Briggs's  inn.  I  have 
seldom  been  so  agreeably  surprised  !  And  now  that  he  has 
spent  twenty-four  hours  here,  and  that  he  is  gone,  I  am  con- 
firmed in  my  opinion;  and  if  the  fairy  were  to  ask  me  the 
question  again,  I  should  more  eagerly  say  —  'Mr.  Herschel, 
ma'am,  if  you  please.' " 

So  the  years  sped  on,  pleasant,  friendly,  if  not  pre- 
cisely eventful.  Marriages  and — as  was  inevitable  in 
so  widely  extended  a  circle  —  deaths  were  the  chief 
events  which  are  recorded  in  the  course  of  them. 
Whether  Miss  Edgeworth  was,  or  was  not,  in  those 
days  the  virtual  owner  of  Edgeworth stown,  seerns  to 
be  doubtful.  Mr.  Hare  asserts  that  she  w^as,  but  that 
view  is  not  borne  out  by  nearer  authorities.  In  any 
case,  hers  was  undoubtedly  the  chief  guiding  hand  over 
its  arrangements,  and  her  purse  the  one  that  "was 
always  open  for  every  emergency.  In  1829  a  distant 
relation,  "Mrs.  Anna  Edgeworth,  of  London,"  died,  as 
we  learn  from  the  family  annals,  "  and  bequeathed  to 


XIII.]  LATER   LIFE  183 

]\Iaria  a  pair  of  diamond  earrings  and  pearl  bracelets. 
With  the  proceeds  of  these  she  built  a  market-house 
in  the  village,  and  a  room  over  it  for  the  Magistrates' 
Petty  Sessions." 

Incidents  like  these  show  that  her  benevolence  ex- 
tended to  a  considerably  wider  area  than  even  her  own 
widely  extended  family  circle.  Her  name  seems  indeed 
to  have  been  almost  as  well  known  in  her  own  part  of 
Ireland  for  kindliness  as  for  authorship.  In  the  year 
1831  she  chanced  to  be  on  her  way  back  from  a  visit  of 
some  weeks  in  London,  and  found  on  arriving  in  Dublin 
that  no  room  was  to  be  had  in  her  usual  quarters.  It 
was  necessary  to  go  in  search  of  others,  and  the  hotel 
to  which  she  was  directed  proved  to  be,  not  only  very 
uninviting-looking,  but  even  fuller  than  the  one  she 
had  just  left.  The  situation  for  the  moment  seemed 
hopeless,  but  as  usual  her  name  worked  miracles.  — 
"While  we  were  parleying  with  the  waiter  and 
chambermaid,  a  red-eyed,  thin-faced  man  put  his 
head  between  their  shoulders  —  *  My  name 's  Burke, 
ma'am,  and  I  've  just  learned  your  name 's  Edgeworth, 
and  you  're  as  welcome  as  life  to  the  best  room  in  my 
house  for  anything  at  all!  Only  not  a  room  have 
I  vacant  till  after  twelve,  then  the  General  will  be 
gone,  and  you  shall  have  a  proper  drawing-room,  if 
you'll  kindly  take  up  with  what  you  see  till  after 
breakfast.' " 

To  the  properly  constituted  mind  there  will  always 
be  something  particularly  pleasant  about  such  spon- 
taneous tributes  as  these,  and,  however  philosophically 
Miss  Edgeworth  might  take  her  ordinary  triumphs,  it 
is  evident,  from  the  fact  of  her  recording  it,  that  an 
incident  like  the  foregoing  gave  her  quite  the  right  and 


184  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

human  amount  of  pleasure.  Space  dwindles,  and  only  a 
few  items,  out  of  the  many  with  which  these  years  were 
filled,  can  be  given  here.  In  May  1829  her  brother 
William,  the  engineer,  died,  as  so  many  of  the  Sueyd 
branch  of  the  family  had  done,  of  rapid  consumption. 
In  the  September  following  Wordsworth  visited  Edge- 
worthstown,  and  is  described  by  Miss  Edgeworth  as 
having  "  a  good  philosophical  bust,  and  a  long,  thin, 
gaunt  face,  much  wrinkled  and  weather-beaten."  In 
November  1830  she  again  paid  a  visit  to  London,  and 
while  absent  there  her  aunt  and  lifelong  correspondent, 
Mrs.  Ruxton,  died,  a  sorrow  which  for  a  time  seems  to 
have  renewed  that  peculiar  sense  of  desolation  which 
her  father's  loss  had  for  the  first  time  awakened  in 
her. 

Only  one  more  expedition  seems  to  have  been 
made  to  the  Atlantic  side  of  Ireland  after  the 
memorable  one  in  the  company  of  Sir  Walter  Scott 
and  Lockhart.  This  was  in  the  autumn  of  1833, 
nearly  nine  years  later.  A  Sir  Culling  and  Lady 
Smith  chanced  to  be  amongst  the  visitors  to  Edge- 
worthstown  in  the  course  of  that  summer  —  opulent 
folk  apparently,  possessors  of  a  "  mighty  grand " 
travelling  coach,  drawn  by  four  horses,  and  all  else 
to  match.  At  their  urgent  request  Miss  Edgeworth 
was  induced  to  accept  a  seat  in  the  said  travelling 
coach,  and  to  accompany  them  in  their  progress 
through  the  west  of  Ireland,  a  trip  in  which  it  was 
proposed  to  include  the  then  almost  unattainable 
region  of  Connemara. 

For  strictly  personal  reasons  the  most  interesting 
part  of  that  expedition  to  her  present  biographer  lies 
in  the  fact  of  Miss  Edgeworth  having  on  this  occasion 


xiii.]  LATER  LIFE  185 

made  acquaintance  with  the  Martins  of  Ballinahinch, 
especially  with  the  remarkable  daughter  of  that  house, 
Mary  Martin.  In  those  days  the  extreme  west  of  Ire- 
land was,  to  the  inhabitants  of  its  more  conventional 
and  anglicised  eastern  portions,  almost  as  foreign,  it 
must  be  remembered,  as  if  the  same  set  of  seas  had  not 
enclosed  both.  So  far  from  there  being  any  railroad 
across  its  intricacies,  there  were  not  at  the  time  even 
any  driving  ones,  although  the  enterprising  Nimmo  — 
rival  and  precursor  of  Macadam  —  was  just  then  in 
the  very  act  of  constructing  them.  Unluckily  for  our 
travellers,  they  were  not  yet  in  a  sufficiently  advanced 
state  to  be  driven  over.  "  Nimmo's  new  road,  looking 
like  a  gravel  path,"  Miss  Edgeworth  wrote  to  her 
brother,  "  was  running  parallel  to  our  road  of  danger, 
yet,  for  want  of  being  finished,  useless,  and  most 
tantalising." 

Tantalising,  truly,  considering  that  this  was  the  sort 
of  thing  that  it  was  destined  to  supersede  :  — 

"  Through  eighteen  sloughs  we  went,  or  were  got,  at  the 
imminent  peril  of  our  lives.  Why  the  carriage  was  not 
broken  to  pieces  I  cannot  tell,  but  an  excellent  strong 
carriage  it  was,  thank  Heaven  and  the  builder,  whoever  he 
was."  ..."  It  grew  dark,  and  Sir  Culling,  very  brave,  was 
walking  beside  the  carriage,  so  when  we  came  to  the  next 
bad  step,  he  sank  above  his  knees.  How  they  di-agged  him 
out  I  could  not  see,  and  there  were  we  in  the  carriage  stuck 
fast  in  a  slough,  which,  we  were  told,  was  the  last  but  one 
before  we  reached  Ballinahinch  Castle.  Suddenly  my  eyes 
were  blessed  with  a  twinkling  light  in  the  distance  —  a  boy 
with  a  lantern.  And  when,  breathless,  he  panted  up  to  the 
side  of  the  carriage,  and  thrust  up  lantern  and  note  (we  still 
in  the  slough),  how  glad  I  was  to  see  him  and  it !  and  to 
hear  him  say, '  Then  Mr.  Martin  's  very  unaasy  about  yees  — 
so  he  is.' " 


186  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

The  letter  describing  all  this  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Life  and  Letters,  and  was  written  nearly  a  year  later 
to  her  brother  Pakenham,  who  was  then  in  India. 
From  it  we  ascertain  that  the  visit  to  the  Martins  was 
originally  an  impromptu,  being  due  entirely  to  her  own 
terrors  over  the  road.  The  inn  at  Clifden,  the  nearest 
town,  had  been  their  original  destination,  but,  after  the 
coach  had  stuck  fast  for  the  twentieth  time,  she  and 
Lady  Smith  persuaded  Sir  Culling  to  let  her  send  her 
card  with  an  appeal  for  hospitality  to  Mr.  Martin. 
Needless  to  say,  it  was  at  once  responded  to.  They 
reached  the  Castle  of  Ballinahinch  alive,  only  to  find 
its  chimneys  on  fire !  That,  however,  appeared  to  be  a 
matter  of  not  the  slightest  consequence,  in  fact  a  mere 
precursor  to  the  dinner,  which  is  described  by  Miss 
Edgeworth  as  follows  :  —  "  Such  a  dinner  !  London 
hons  vivants  might  have  blessed  themselves  !  Venison 
such  as  Sir  Culling  declared  could  not  be  found  in 
England,  except  from  one  or  two  immense  parks ; 
salmon,  lobsters,  oysters,  game ;  all  well  cooked  and 
well  served,  and  well  placed  upon  the  table.  Nothing 
loaded ;  all  in  good  taste ;  wines,  such  as  I  was  not 
worthy  of,  but  Sir  Culling  knew  how  to  praise  them ; 
champagne,  and  all  manner  of  French  wines." 

More  interesting  than  even  Mr.  Martin's  really 
remarkable  impromptu  dinner,  was,  in  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  eyes,  Mr.  Martin's  only  daughter  :  —  "  Miss 
Martin  sat  opposite  to  me,  and,  with  the  light  of  the 
branch  candles  full  upon  her,  I  saw  that  slie  was  very 
young,  about  seventeen,  very  fair,  with  hair  wliich 
might  be  called  red  by  rivals,  and  auburn  by  friends, 
her  eyes  blue  grey,  prominent,  and  like  some  picture 
I  have  seen  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci." 


xiii.]  LATER  LITE  187 

As  it  turned  out,  Miss  Edgeworth  was  destined  to 
have  more  extended  opportunities  for  getting  acquainted 
with  this  Leonardo  da  Vinci-like  daughter  of  the  West 
than  had  at  first  seemed  probable.  Whether  owing 
to  the  shocks  of  her  journey,  or  to  some  other  cause, 
upon  the  following  day  Lady  Smith  fell  seriously  ill. 
It  was  found  to  be  impossible  to  move  her,  and  for  the 
next  three  weeks,  the  whole  party  were  forced  to  remain 
upon  the  hospitable  hands  of  the  Martins.  Although 
nothing  could  have  exceeded  their  kindness,  the  sense 
of  isolation,  as  well  as  the  difficulties  about  receiving  any 
of  their  letters,  proved  to  be  no  small  trial  to  the  guests. 
Three  times  a  week  a  ** gossoon"  ran  with  the  post  to 
Oughterard,  thirty-six  miles  away,  where  the  nearest 
coach  passed.  "  One  runs  for  a  day  and  a  night,  and 
then  sleeps  for  a  day  and  a  night,  while  another  takes 
his  turn,"  Miss  Edgeworth  explained  to  her  brother. 
Of  the  manner  of  life  prevailing  in  the  region,  and  of 
the  patriarchal  rule  of  Mr.  Martin  himself,  she  has  also 
much  to  tell,  but  above  and  beyond  everything  else,  her 
interest  is  evidently  centred  in  the  heiress  of  all  this 
semi-savage  magnificence.  On  one  occasion  Miss  Mar- 
tin took  Sir  Culling  Smith  and  herself  to  visit  the 
Connemara  marble  quarries,  followed  by  her  usual  train 
of  followers.  Wishing  for  an  answer  from  one  of  the 
latter,  Sir  Culling  asked  her  to  pass  on  her  inquiry 
in  her  own  fashion.  —  "  When  the  question  had  been 
put  and  answered,  Sir  Culling  objected,  '  But,  Miss 
Martin,  you  did  not  put  the  question  exactly  as  I 
asked  you  to  state  it.'  '  No,'  said  she,  with  colour 
raised  and  head  thrown  ba,ck,  'no,  because  I  knew 
how  to  put  it  so  that  my  people  can  understand  it. 
Je  sais  mon  metier  de  reine.'  " 


188  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

It  was  the  old  world  and  the  new  one  brought 
face  to  face  with  a  vengeance !  the  contrast  rendered 
the  more  piquant  from  the  fact  of  the  new  one  being 
represented  by  the  worthy  middle-aged  baronet,  the 
old  by  the  girl  of  seventeen.  Miss  Edgeworth  has 
her  own  shrewd  comments  to  make  upon  it  all,  and 
describes  with  much  amusement  —  "  the  astonishment 
of  Sir  Culling  at  Miss  Martin's  want  of  sympathy 
with  his  own  really  liberal  and  philanthropic  views 
for  Ireland,  while  she  is  full  of  her  'tail';  of  her 
father's  fifty-miles-long  avenue ;  also  of  ^schylus  and 
Euripides,  in  which  she  is  admirably  well  read.  Do 
think  of  a  girl  of  seventeen,  in  the  wilds  of  Conne- 
mara,  intimately  acquainted  with  all  the  beauties  of 
^schylus  and  Euripides,  and  having  them  as  part  of 
her  daily  thoughts ! " 

Noteworthy  enough,  yet  to  the  student  of  Irish 
social  life  there  are  facts  to  be  remembered  about 
Mary  Martin  which  are  even  more  noteworthy  than 
her  knowledge  of  ^Eschylus.  If  she  strutted  her  brief 
hour  with  somewhat  too  queen-like  a  gait,  'twere  harsh 
to  grudge  it,  remembering  what  was  to  be  the  sequel  of 
it  all.  —  "  Don't  you  think  your  friend  Sir  Walter  Scott 
would  have  liked  our  people  and  country  ?  "  the  poor 
Connemara  "  Princess "  one  day  asked  Miss  Edge- 
worth  rather  wistfully.  It  was  the  last  chance  for 
Sir  Walter,  or  any  other  magician,  to  wave  the  wand 
of  description  over  a  state  of  affairs  which  was  even 
at  that  moment  hurrying  to  its  end.  With  her  keen 
eye  for  a  situation,  Miss  Edgeworth  in  the  same  letter 
points  out  that  the  state  of  affairs  then  prevailing  at 
Ballinahinch  was  —  "not  so  much  a  feudal  state,  as 
the  tail  of  a  feudal  state.    Dick  Martin  —  father  of  the 


XIII.]  LATER  LIFE  180 

present  man  —  was  not  only  lord  of  all  he  surveyed, 
but  lord  of  all  the  lives  of  the  people.  Now  the  laws 
of  the  land  have  come  in,  and  rival  proprietors  have 
sprung  up." 

Despite  their  wide  diversity  of  views,  something  like 
a  genuine  friendship  seems  to  have  arisen  between  the 
distinguished  guest  and  her  entertainers,  a  sentiment 
which  was  evidently  especially  warm  upon  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  side  towards  the  youngest  of  those  entertainers 
—  "  Mary."  After  nearly  four  weeks'  illness,  Lady 
Smith,  however,  began  to  mend.  The  coach  and 
horses  were  ordered  out  of  Mr.  Martin's  stables,  where 
they  had  all  this  time  been  reposing,  and  a  guide 
was  secured  to  see  the  party  safe  out  of  Connemara, 
across  the  endless  sloughs.  They  departed,  and  these 
two  women  —  interesting  if  only  from  sheer  force  of 
contrast  —  never,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  met  again. 
Eleven  years  afterwards  came  the  great  Famine,  and 
a  little  later,  Mary  Martin  —  having  in  the  interval  lost 
parents,  castle,  retainers,  property,  everything  —  too 
proud  to  ask  for  a  help  which  would  have  been  right 
joyfully  given  —  left  Ireland  for  ever  on  board  of  an 
emigrant  ship,  having  previously  married  a  cousin  of 
her  own,  almost  poorer  than  herself.  The  emigrant 
ship  was  —  what  emigrant  ships  were  in  those  ghastly 
years,  —  and  the  experience  was  one  from  which  she 
never  recovered.  Although  friendly  hands  were 
stretched  out  to  her  on  the  further  shore,  it  was  too 
late.  She  died  within  a  brief  period  of  her  arrival  in 
America,  and  with  her,  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration 
to  say,  an  entire  type  —  a  type  of  which,  to  those 
who  had  known  her,  she  remained  always  the  most 
attractive  embodiment  —  perished  also. 


190  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

This,  it  is  as  well,  however,  to  remember,  is  a 
biography,  not  of  Mary  Martin,  but  of  Maria  Edge- 
worth  !  One  of  the  latest  in  date  of  the  same  batch  of 
unprinted  letters  from  which  I  have  already  so  largely 
drawn,  was  written  in  the  year  1836,  and  contains  the 
following  characteristic  description  of  a  scene  witnessed 
by  Miss  Edgeworth  upon  the  return  of  Lord  and  Lady 
Dillon  to  their  estates  in  Roscommon.  It  is  addressed 
to  her  brother  Sneyd :  — 

"  Last  night  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock  we  sud- 
denly heard  a  burst  of  noise,  of  uproar  indescribable, 
at  the  hall  door,  yells,  screams,  huzzas  —  and  such  a 
blaze  of  light !  When  we  ran  out  of  the  dining-room 
into  the  hall,  we  might  have  thought  that  the  house 
was  on  fire.  But  it  was  only  rejoicings  —  from  a  crowd 
of  hundreds  of  ragged  subjects,  bearing  in  their  hands, 
and  flourishing  high  in  air,  great  poles,  to  which  huge 
blazing  wisps  of  straw  were  fastened,  which  streamed 
to  the  sparkling  night.  A  strong  light  was  cast  on 
the  wild  figures,  and  on  the  strange,  gaunt,  savage, 
comic,  expecting,  intelligent,  grinning,  pathetic  faces, 
crowded  below,  up  to  the  very  high  hall  door  steps, 
upon  which  Lord  and  Lady  Dillon  stood ;  the  sea  of 
heads,  as  far  as  eye  could  reach,  ending  in  darkness 
visible.  It  was  one  of  the  most  striking  sights  I  ever 
saw  —  and  would  have  been  the  finest  study  for  a 
painter — I  wished  for  Wilkie — but  more  for  Mulready, 
who  has  some  Irish  genius.  There  is  in  this  County 
of  Roscommon  a  red  dye  and  a  deep  blue,  such  as 
the  Italian  painters  love,  which  added  much  to  the 
picturesque  effect  of  these  barbaric  rejoicings.  Some 
groups  of  women  and  children,  young  and  old,  sat  on 


XIII,]  LATER   LIFE  191 

the  lowest  step,  or  leaned  against  the  piers,  and  there 
was  one  prominent  face  of  intense  curiosity,  that  of  a 
bare-necked,  red-haired  man,  half  rogue,  three-quarters 
savage,  stretching  neck  in  front  to  listen  to  the  lady, 
which  can  never  leave  my  eyes. 

"  The  object  of  the  whole  (under  these  rejoicings) 
was  to  obtain  leave  to  hold  a  market,  I  believe,  at 
Loughglynn.  Petition  referred  by  my  lord  to  Mr. 
Strickland,  the  agent,  and  cause  adjourned  till  his 
return.  So  with  a  whoop,  and  a  screech,  and  a  brand- 
ish of  yet  unextinguished  torches,  they  beat  them 
against  the  ground  and  disappeared." 

Of  other  unpublished  letters,  not  less  good,  there  are 
still  a  considerable  number.  Only  room,  however,  can 
be  found  in  these  pages  for  one  more,  which,  if  from 
its  touches  of  humour  alone,  is  irresistible.  It  begins 
with  an  account  of  all  that  Miss  Edgeworth  saw  and 
did  at  Armagh,  while  upon  a  visit  there  to  her  lively 
scientific  friend,  Dr.  Robinson  of  the  Observatory,  and 
his  wife.  Then  follows  her  start  home,  all  alone  at 
half-past  five  upon  a  pouring  wet  morning :  — 

"  I  was  to  have  left  the  Observatory  on  Saturday, 
but  when  all  packed,  and  chaise  at  the  door  at  eight 
o'clock,  it  rained  and  blew  such  a  storm  that  I  really 
could  not  go.  Stayed  till  Monday ;  gave  up  the  visit 
to  Red  House ;  instead  of  going  in  postchaise  alone  to 
Ardee,  found  that  I  could  go  in  a  coach  which  had 
just  begun  to  run  (to  oblige  me)  by  Slane  to  Dublin  ; 
so  got  up  at  five  o'clock  on  Monday  morning —  dark  ! 
raining  and  blowing  desperately !  The  jaunting  car 
having  been  ordered  instead  of  their  chaise  I  was  a 
little  dismayed,  but  Dr.  Robinson  was  so  good  as  to  go 


192  MARIA   EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

with  me,  though  he  had  been  talking  till  one  o'clock 
the  night  before,  and  had  been  up  long  afterwards 
finishing  his  observations.  [He  and  Brougham  are 
both  of  them  evidently  supernatural  beings,  and  can 
do  without  sleep !]  Well,  in  the  almost  quite  dark 
morning,  quarter  before  six  o'clock,  he  packed  me 
and  all  my  horribly  troublesome  number  of  boxes  and 
bags  upon  the  car,  and  seating  himself  beside  me  held 
a  huge  umbrella  over  me  —  how  he  held  it.  Heaven 
knows,  against  the  wind,  and  up  hill  and  down  hill  in 
that  vile  hilly  town  of  Armagh  (next  to  Lausanne  the 
most  hated  by  horses).  And  just  as  we  reached  a 
dark  blot  in  the  street  which  proved  to  be  the  coach, 
*  Stop  !  Stop  for  a  lady  ! '  —  and  my  boxes  were 
hoisted  up,  and  Dr.  Robinson  lifted  me  as  you  would 
a  doll,  from  the  jaunting  car  to  the  coach,  and  put  me 
safely  in  without  my  foot  touching  wet  ground,  and 
without  one  drop  on  my  bonnet.  From  the  first 
moment  to  the  last  nothing  could  be  kinder  than  both 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Robinson  were  to  me.  I  have  the  image 
of  her  standing  with  her  thin  dressing-gown  and  nice 
night-cap  on,  candle  in  hand  in  the  passage,  to  take 
the  last  leave  of  me  at  a  quarter  before  six  that  rainy 
morning,  the  hall-door  open,  and  the  wind  draughting 
—  something  like  friendship  that,  is  it  not,  my  dear  ?  as 
Molly  Macaulay  might  say.  But  I  shall  never  get  to 
the  end  of  my  journey  !  In  the  coach,  as  soon  as  the 
grey  light  of  morning  made  them  visible,  I  saw  op- 
posite to  me  a  thin,  mild-looking  sort  of  man  with 
a  cleric  hat  on  his  knees,  and  a  fat  2- volumes-bound- 
in-one  of  a  jolly  mortal,  who  might  have  been  a 
Catholic  priest,  or  a  prosperous  whiskey-selling  shop- 
keeper.    The  thin  man  was  a  priest,  a  country  curate; 


XIII.]  LATER  LIFE  193 

and  the  thick  man  I  know  not  what,  but  a  wag  gratis, 
and  many  a  joke  he  cut  upon  the  mild  priest,  who 
never  soured,  always  smiled  benignantly,  not  Jesuit- 
ically.  One  instance  will  tell  all.  I  was  at  work 
(Honiton  border) ;  I  threaded  a  small  needle. 

"  (Priest.)  '  Well,  long  as  I  have  lived '  (he  could  not 
have  lived  very  long),  'I  never  saw  that  done,  and 
would  not  have  believed  it  possible.' 

"  (  Wag.)  '  No  ?  Why,  then,  your  Church  believes 
more  extraordinary  things  possible.' 

"Presently  came  in  a  huge,  bang-up-coated,  self- 
sufficient  bear  of  an  English  agent,  with  a  fur  cap 
on  his  very  handsome  head,  set  at  the  angle  of 
insolence. 

"  ( Wag.)  '  Sir,  you  have  the  advantage  of  us  in 
having  a  lady  on  the  same  side  with  you.' 

"  Down  flopped  the  gentleman  without  the  least  pre- 
tence of  care  for  the  female,  and  it  was  well  he  did 
not  extinguish  me.  I  shrunk,  and  was  saved.  Much 
politics,  and  three  newspapers  unfolded,  and  handed  by 
the  bear  to  all  but  the  female.  Almost  all  his  sentences 
began  or  ended  with  *  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying ' 
—  or  'Decidedly  —  decidedly.'  He  was  not  without 
sense  or  even  liberality,  but  he  made  both  almost 
odious.  He  talked  of  hunting  men,  as  if  they  were 
animals.  I  thought  he  must  be  either  a  Revenue 
officer  or  an  agent,  and  I  afterwards  found  he  is  agent 
to  both  Lord  Bath  and  Mr.  Shirley.  He  shall  be  in 
my  books,  I  promise  him,  whenever  I  get  to  Ireland 
again.  I  am  much  obliged  to  him,  for  he  has  given 
me  many  ideas  that  will  work  up  well." 

Unfortunately  Miss  Edgeworth  never  did  "get  to 


194  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

Ireland  again  "  in  this  sense  of  the  word.    Writing  to  a 
brother  who  seems  to  have  remonstrated  with  her  on 
tlie  subject,  she  tells  him  that  Ireland  was  just  then  in 
too  uncomfortable  a  condition  —  "  we  are  in  too  peril- 
ous a  case"  —  for  her  to  write  another  Irish  story  at 
that  time.     The  excuse  may  pass,  and  has  been  used 
since   then    by    worse   writers,    but    it   will    scarcely 
serve  in  the  case  of  an  author  whose  best  book  —  and 
an  Irish  book  to  boot  —  was  written  amid  the  terrors 
and  the  turmoils  of  the  year    ninety-eight!     It  was 
in  1830  —  when  already  past  sixty  years  of  age  —  that 
Miss  Edgeworth  set  to  work  upon  the  last,  and  what, 
at  the  time  it  was  written,  was  possibly  the  most  suc- 
cessful of  all  her  novels  —  namely,  Helen.     Any  reader 
who  will  take  it  down  from  its  shelf,  and  glance  over  it, 
will  quickly  perceive  that  it  is  a  novel  of  a  very  much 
more  modern  type  than  any  other  by  the  same  hand. 
In  reading  it  we  are  aware  that  the  eighteenth  century 
has  at  last  dropped  out  of  sight,  and  that  we  are  well 
out  upon  the  nineteenth,  not  indeed  as  yet "  Victorian," 
but  in  a  sort  of  midway  region,  on  the  road  to  that 
superior  epoch.    The  old  didactic  attitude  is  still  visible, 
but  has  become  decidedly  less  aggressive,     ^i  inopos  of 
one  of  the  earlier  novels.  Lord  Jeffrey  remarked  that  — 
"  Miss  Edgeworth  walks  by  the  side  of  her  characters, 
as  Mentor  by  the  side  of  Telemachus,  keeping  them  out 
of  all  manner  of  pleasant  mischief,  and  wagging  from 
time  to  time  a  monitory  finger."     The  criticism  is  true 
of  Helen  also,  but  is  less  true  of  it  than  of  most  of  the 
older  books.     In  his  undeniably  brilliant  novel  What 
ivill  he  do  ivith  it?  the  first  Lord  Lytton  is  extremely 
humorous  about  poor  Miss  Edgeworth's  heroines.    Some 
young  woman  in  that  book  is  declared  to  be  exactly 


XIII.]  LATER  LIFE  195 

like  one  of  them  —  just  the  same  type  of  "  superior 
girl " ;  "  so  rational,  so  prudent,  so  well  behaved ;  so 
free  from  silly,  romantic  notions  ;  so  replete  with  solid 
information."  This  again  may  be  perfectly  true,  only 
where,  one  asks  oneself  by  way  of  parenthesis,  have 
Lord  Lytton's  oivn  adorable  heroines  got  to  by  this 
time,  or  how  many  novel-readers  would  undertake  to 
remember  so  much  as  a  single  one  of  their  names  ? 

In  the  month  of  February  1833  we  find  Miss  Edge- 
worth  writing  as  follows  to  her  cousin  Sophy  Ruxton:  — 

"  I  fear  you  will  be  tired  of  hearing  of  Helen  before  you 
become  acquainted  with  her.  Since  I  wrote  to  you  last,  when 
I  left  it  to  your  own  choice  whether  to  read  her  before  or  after 
you  come  here,  I  see  much  reason,  for  her  sake  and  my  own, 
to  wish  that  you  should  put  off  reading  it  till  after  you  come 
to  us,  and  till  I  have  finished  it.  Now  I  am  in  full  eagerness 
finishing,  and  shall  be  at  the  end  in  three  weeks,  if  I  do  not 
stop  to  do  a  hundred  other  things.  Therefore,  my  dear  Sophy, 
and  my  dear  Margaret,  I  beg  you  to  bear  with  my  change- 
ableness,  and  let  it  be  till  the  story  is  finished." 

Finished  it  was  within  a  couple  of  months  of  the 
writing  of  this  letter.  There  was  still,  however,  before 
Miss  Edgeworth  the  task  of  finding  a  publisher,  and  of 
making  a  bargain  —  not  a  part  of  the  profession  of 
literature  which  she  at  all  relished,  or  had  ever  before 
been  called  upon  to  undertake.  A  piece  of  great  good 
fortune,  however,  befell  her,  and  she  was  able  to 
secure  no  less  an  aid  and  go-between  than  Lockhart. 
Under  his  auspices  the  bargain  was  quickly  made, 
and  seems  to  have  been  an  excellent  one,  for  she 
received  a  larger  sum  for  Helen  than  for  any  other 
single  book  of  hers,  with  the  exception  of  Patronage. 

This  seems  to  be  the  place  for  furnishing  the  reader 


198  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

with  a  list  of  the  prices  received  by  Miss  Edgeworth 
for  her  various  books,  one  which  I  have  also  been 
most  kindly  allowed  to  copy  from  her  own  hitherto 
unprinted  mss. 

Copyrights  to  Maria  and  R.  L.  Edgeworth 

£  s.  d. 

Parent's  Assistant  .        .        .  120  0  0 

Practical  Education         .         .  300  0  0 

Letters  for  Literary  Ladies     .  40  0  0 

Castle  Rackrent       .         .         .  100  0  0 

Moral  Tales     .         .         .        .  200  0  0 

Early  Lessons          .         .         .  50  0  0 

Belinda  .         .        .         .        .  300  0  0 

Bulls 100  0  0 

Explanation  of  Poetry     .         .  40  0  0 

Letter  to  Lord  Charlemont      .  3  12  0 

Griselda 100  0  0 

Popular  Tales          .        .        .  300  0  0 

Leonora 200  0  0 

Fashionable  Tales,  1st  part     .  900  0  0 

Professional  Education    .         .  300  0  0 

Fashionable  Tales,  2nd  part    .  1050  0  0 
Johnson's   account    paid    and 

presents  of  books,  etc.         .  78  16  10 

1815  Patronage        ....  2100  0  0 

—  Early  Lessons,  continuation     .  210  0  0 
1817  Comic  Dramas          .         .         .  300  0  0 

—  Harrington  and  Ormond  .         .  1150  0  0 

*1819  Memoirs 750  0  0 

*1821  Rosamond.     Sequel          .         .     420  0  0 

*1823  Frank.     Sequel         .         .         .     400  0  0 


XIII.]  LATER  LIFE  197 

*1828  Little  Plays      ....  £100  0  0 

*1825  Harry  and  Lucy,  continued       .     400  0  0 

*1834  Helen 1100  0  0 


£11,062    8  10 


These  figures  are  accompanied  by  a  note,  in  Miss 
Edgeworth's  own  handwriting,  written  as  late  as  the 
year  1842,  only  seven  years,  therefore,  before  her 
death.  It  explains  that  the  books  which  are  marked 
in  the  mss.  by  a  star  in  red  ink  were  the  ones  written 
by  her  after  her  father's  death — the  only  ones  evidently 
which  she  regarded  as  her  own  exclusive  property. 
For  the  copyright  of  these  she  received  three  thousand 
one  hundred  pounds,  with  regard  to  the  expenditure 
of  which  we  obtain  the  following  characteristic  expla- 
nation :  "  I  spent  of  this  sum  in  delightful  travelling 
with  my  sisters  to  France,  Switzerland,  Scotland,  and 
England  (including  nine  or  ten  months'  residence  in 
France,  and  two  winters  in  London),  about  two  thou- 
sand pounds.  And  I  had  the  pleasure  of  giving  to 
my  brothers  and  sisters  and  near  relatives  from  copy- 
right of  Helen  about  five  or  six  hundred. 

M.  E.,  Sej)tember  1842." 

To  give  away  was  clearly  for  Miss  Edgeworth  of 
the  nature  of  an  indulgence,  one  that  it  behoved 
her  to  keep  in  some  check !  Not  alone  did  she 
delight  in  exercising  it,  as  in  this  instance,  upon  a 
somewhat  large  scale,  but  also  upon  the  minutest  one 
possible.  Nor  was  it  only  her  own  kith  and  kin,  but 
all  who  came  within  her  ken  were  apt  to  find  them- 
selves the  more  or  less  surprised  recipients  of  gifts. 
The  habit  of  universal   present-giving  is   one  which 


198  MARIA  EDGEWOETH  [chap. 

it  is  to  be  feared  children  alone  properly  appreciate, 
and  it  was  one  of  the  ties  which  bound  Miss  Edge- 
worth  so  closely  to  her  long  list  of  child-friends.  Not, 
however,  the  only  one.  What  she  herself  called  the 
"  Rosamund  instincts  "  —  a  love  of  the  most  infantile 
sort  of  adventures,  and  of  playing  the  truant  generally 
—  survived  in  her  to  an  almost  incredible  age.  This 
is  a  side  of  her  character  which  has  never,  I  think, 
been  sufficiently  emphasised  by  her  biographers,  and 
was  probably  the  one  which  —  combined  with  her  tiny 
size  —  brought  her  into  such  instant  freemasonry  with 
every  child  she  encountered,  even  accidentally.  An 
anecdote  is  told  in  one  of  Mrs.  Richmond  Ritchie's 
prefaces  of  a  little  girl  who,  at  a  crowded  party, 
suddenly  started  out  of  a  remote  corner,  looked  at  her 
hard,  and  said,  "  I  like  Simple  Susan  best,"  and  then 
rushed  away  again,  overwhelmed  by  her  own  audacity. 
Another  tale,  reported  upon  the  authority  of  Lady 
Monteagle,  refers  to  a  dinner-party,  at  the  beginning 
of  which  the  principal  guest  (Miss  Edgeworth  herself) 
was,  to  the  dismay  of  her  hostess,  suddenly  found  to 
be  missing.  After  a  considerable  delay  she  was  tracked 
to  the  back-kitchen,  to  which  she  had  been  lured  by 
the  children  of  the  house,  in  order  that  she  might 
inspect  some  rabbits  which  they  were  rearing  in  that 
appropriate  home. 

From  the  half-forgotten  pages  of  an  old  magazine, 
the  following  anecdote  has  recently  been  disinterred, 
which  bears  directly  upon  this  point.  The  date  of  the 
incident  is  not  given,  but  clearly  it  must  have  occurred 
quite  late  in  Miss  Edgeworth's  life.  Although  anony- 
mous, its  authenticity  stands  legibly  inscribed,  I  think, 
upon  its  face  :  — 


xiii.]  LATER  LIFE  199 

"A  party  of  happy  young  people  were  travelling  half  a 
century  ago  by  train  together  in  England.  At  one  end  of 
their  carriage  were  seated  two  elderly  ladies,  one  of  whom 
they  noticed  to  be  exceedingly  small.  Strangers  at  the 
beginning  of  the  journey,  the  travellers  in  time  began  to 
exchange  remarks  with  one  another,  and  books  soon  became 
the  subject  on  which  young  and  old  evidently  preferred  to 
talk.  At  last  Miss  Edgeworth's  works  were  mentioned  :  they 
were  great  favourites  with  the  young  people,  and  they  spoke 
warmly  of  the  delight  that  Simple  Susan  and  Lazy  Lawrence 
had  been  to  them  in  their  childish  days.  Suddenly  two 
of  the  party  looked  at  each  other  and  smiled,  and  one  of 
them  turning  to  the  little  old  lady  in  the  corner  said  :  '  We 
always  feel  guilty  when  we  hear  Miss  Edgeworth  spoken  of, 
for  when  we  were  children  we  did  such  a  dreadful  thing ;  we 
cannot  imagine  now  how  we  could  have  been  so  bold.  We 
were  very  fond  of  drawing  pictures  of  our  pet  characters, 
and  of  course  were  always  trying  to  illustrate  The  Parent's 
Assistant,  and  only  think !  we  actually  made  up  a  packet 
of  what  we  considered  our  best  pictures,  with  our  Christian 
names  written  under  them,  and  posted  it  to  Miss  Edgeworth  I 
What  must  she  have  thought  of  such  children  ?'" 

The  answer  was  not  long  delayed,  and  reads  for  all 
the  world  like  an  answer  out  of  a  fairy  tale :  — 

"  The  little  old  lady's  kindly  face  lighted  up  with  pleasure. 
— '  And  /  can  tell  you  that  those  drawings  are  still  carefully 
treasured,'  she  replied,  '  for  /  am  Maria  Edgeworth  I '  " 

In  1835  Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Ticknor  visited  Edge- 
worthstown,  and  the  former  has  left  to  the  world  an 
elaborate  record  of  all  that  he  saw  and  did  there.  I 
cannot  say  that  his  letters  on  the  subject  appeal  to  me 
particularly.  He  was  received  by  Miss  Edgeworth, 
he  tells  his  correspondent,  at  the  front-door,  who 
explained  to  him  the  various  people  he  might  expect 
to  meet  in  the  house  —  no  unnecessary  precaution  for 


200  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

a  stranger  entering  so  large  and  so  complicated  a  family- 
circle  !  He  goes  on  to  relate  that  she  was  then  ''  almost 
sixty-seven  years  of  age " ;  that  she  was  "  small, 
short,  and  spare "  ;  that  she  possessed  "  extremely 
frank  and  kind  manners,  looking  straight  into  your 
face  with  a  pair  of  mild,  deep  grey  eyes  whenever 
she  speaks."  These  are  the  more  valuable  of  the 
points  in  his  description,  unless  a  reader  can  be 
excited  by  hearing  that  —  "  We  dined  punctually  at 
half-past  six,  and  rejoined  the  ladies  in  the  library 
at  half-past  eight "  ;  or  that,  on  going  the  Sunday 
following  to  church,  —  "  Miss  Edgeworth  carried  her 
favourite  prayerbook  in  a  nice  case,  and  knelt  and 
made  the  responses  very  devoutly  " ;  or  that  finally, 
upon  a  portion  of  the  correspondence  between  her  and 
Sir  Walter  Scott  being  shown  to  him,  the  comment 
which  it  suggested  to  the  distinguished  visitor's  mind 
was  that  it  —  "seemed  to  have  been  extremely  credit- 
able to  both  parties." 

England,  America,  and  the  Continent  all  sent 
visitors  to  Edgeworthstown  during  the  last  two  or 
three  decades  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  life.  It  had  in 
fact,  to  a  great  degree,  come  to  hold  in  Ireland  the 
position  which  Abbotsford  for  many  years  held  in 
Scotland ;  as  a  place  of  pilgrimage,  one  which  no  self- 
respecting  person  visiting  the  country  at  that  date 
would  like  to  feel  that  he  or  she  had  missed  seeing. 
Of  more  local  visitors  there  were  also  many,  amongst 
whom  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hall,  the  Irish  novelists,  ought 
to  be  mentioned.  Like  Mr.  Ticknor,  Mrs.  Hall  upon 
her  departure  wrote,  and  moreover  published,  a  some- 
what uninspiring  report  of  all  that  she  had  seen  and 
heard.     Not  content  with  describing  the  illustrious 


xiii.]  LATER  LIFE  201 

authoress  herself,  she  equally  minutely  describes  the 
less  distinguished  members  of  the  family,  also  the 
library,  the  village,  Sir  Walter  Scott's  pen  —  an  un- 
expectedly commonplace  one  —  with  everything  else 
describable,  down  to  the  very  chairs  and  tables.  This 
tribute  of  admiration  being  duly  returned  to  her 
entertainers,  "  all  the  world,"  Miss  Edgeworth  reports, 
"  were  greatly  pleased,"  which  obviously  was  all  that 
could  have  been  desired. 

A  year  or  so  later  another  guest  appeared  at  Edge- 
worthstown,  whose  name  awakens  to-day  much  more 
response,  namely,  Edward  FitzGerald.  Finding  himself 
in  Ireland,  he  took  advantage  of  an  invitation  given, 
not  by  Miss  Edgeworth,  but  by  one  of  her  brothers. 
''  I  came  to  this  house  a  week  ago,"  he  tells  his  cor- 
respondent, "to  visit  a  male  friend."  (Even  for 
Edward  FitzGerald  men  and  women  seem  to  have 
been  still  at  that  date  merely  males  and  females !) 
The  "  male  friend  "  had  considerately  left  Edgeworths- 
town  for  England  the  very  day  before  his  arrival,  and 
the  guest  found  himself  in  a  house  filled  exclusively 
with  unknown  "  females."  That  older  and  less  gre- 
garious Edward  FitzGerald,  with  whom  most  of  us 
are  more  or  less  acquainted,  would  probably  have  fled 
precipitately,  but  the  younger  one  seems  to  have 
been  able  to  endure  such  an  ordeal  with  a  fair  share 
of  philosophy.  He  remained  at  Edgeworthstown  for 
over  a  week,  and  made  himself,  as  he  says,  "  quite  at 
home."  —  "  All  these  people  very  pleasant  and  kind.  .  . . 
The  house  pleasant ;  a  good  library."  Of  the  "  great 
Maria,"  as  he  calls  her,  he  goes  on  to  tell  his  corre- 
spondent that  she  was  at  the  moment  in  which  he 
was  writing  —  "  as  busy  as  a  bee,  making  a  catalogue 


202  MARIA  EDGE  WORTH  [chap. 

of  her  books  beside  me,  and  chattering  away.  We 
are  great  friends.  She  is  as  lively,  active,  and  cheer- 
ful as  if  she  were  but  twenty.  Keally  a  very  enter- 
taining person.  We  talk  about  Walter  Scott,  whom 
she  adores,  and  are  merry  all  the  day  long." 

Another  year  drifts  along  after  this  inspiring  de- 
scription was  penned,  and  we  begin  to  find  that  the 
shadows,  which  none  can  evade,  are  at  last  beginning 
to  gather  also  aboiit  the  "  great  Maria."  For  some 
time  longer  they  were  still,  however,  only  of  the 
comparatively  light  and  passing  variety.  One  of  her 
two  especial  sisters,  Fanny,  had  married  their  friend 
Mr.  Lestock  Wilson,  and  was  settled  at  a  distance, 
in  London.  The  other  one,  Harriet,  was  nearer, 
having  married  an  Irish  clergyman,  Mr.  Butler,  and  a 
brisk  intercourse  seems  to  have  been  kept  up  between 
their  parsonage  and  Edgeworthstown,  After  saying 
that  no  more  letters  of  Miss  Edgeworth  were  to  find 
place  in  this  volume,  I  find  myself  irresistibly  drawn 
into  adding  two  more  from  the  same  unprinted  supply. 
Both  of  these  are  to  Mrs.  Butler.  From  the  first 
we  obtain  an  account  of  a  somewhat  serious  fall  from 
off  a  ladder,  not  elsewhere,  I  think,  mentioned.  The 
original  letter  describing  it,  which  has  been  recently 
in  my  hands,  is  adorned  with  a  design  supposed  to 
represent  herself  in  the  very  act  of  falling :  — 

"  Edgeworthstown,  March  14,  1839. 
"  My  dearest  Harriet,  —  I  hope  the  frontispiece 
which  I  have  sketched  for  you  will  make  you  laugh, 
and  very  glad  I  am  not  to  make  you  cry  !  I  assure 
you  I  had  a  narrow  escape  of  being  a  cripple  on  your 
hands,  and  your  dear  mother's,  for  life. 


XIII.]  LATER  LIFE  208 

"How  I  escaped  breaking  my  legs  I  know  not — so 
entangled  were  they  among  the  rungs  of  the  broken 
ladder,  as  ladder  and  I  came  down  together  —  how  I  can- 
not conceive  !  If  I  had  made  the  least  struggle  1 7mist 
have  broken  both  legs,  but  I  let  the  ladder  do  just  as 
it  pleased,  and  one-half  was  so  good  as  to  fall  clean  off 
one  foot,  without  doing  a  hap'orth  of  harm  to  foot  or 
leg.  And  the  other  half  of  the  ladder  was  content 
with  scraping  the  skin  two  half-crowns-worth  off  my 
shin-bone,  but  not  cutting  through  to  the  bone,  leav- 
ing most  considerately  a  cherry -red  film  or  skinnikin 
underneath. 

"  When  I  felt  the  ladder  giving  way  in  the  middle,  I 
could  not  conceive  what  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  was 
going  to  happen,  and  with  all  speed  instinctively  I  put 
down  one  leg  to  the  next  rung  behind  me,  but,  the 
ladder  having  parted  in  the  middle  at  its  hinges,  my 
foot  did  not  reach  the  parting  rung,  but  slipped 
between,  and  down  came  I,  side  over  the  ladder,  head 
foremost,  escaped  miraculously  hitting  the  corner  of 
the  green  box,  and  my  velvet  cap  saved  my  pate,  so 
that  I  was  only  a  little  stunned,  and  much  be-mazed, 
and  shivering  with  pain,  for  the  blow  on  the  shin 
and  scraping  had  been  severe,  and  then  there  was 
surprise,  and  cowardice  to  boot,  and  I  was  afraid 
of  fainting,  but  delighted  to  find  I  had  not  broken  my 
legs.  My  first  distinct  thought  —  after  myself — was, 
how  glad  I  was  the  ladder  did  not  break  with  Willy, 
whom  I  had  let  go  up  it  the  very  day  before.  Finding 
I  could  stand,  I  got  to  the  door,  and  called  out  to 
Lockie  most  manfully,  desiring  she  would  go  fot  my 
mother  (your  mother  was  my  mother  then,  observe,  as 
she  always  is  in  time  of  need).     She   had  not  left 


204  MARIA  EDGEWORTII  [chap. 

the  breakfast-table,  so  was  with  me  with  the  speed 
of  morning  light,  and  doctored,  and  surgeoned  me, 
and  gold-beater-skinned,  and  sticking-plastered,  and 
gowlanded  me,  and  gave  me  esseuce-of-Pity-and-Love 
mixed  properly,  which  did  me  all  the  good  in  the 
world.  And  when  I  was  bandaged  and  dressed, 
Francis  carried  me  upstairs  most  nicely,  and  I  siesta-d 
on  your  mother's  bed  in  the  evening ;  went  to  bed 
admirably  early,  and  took  all  that  I  was  required  to 
take." 

After  this  tale  of  adventure  follows  what  was  evi- 
dently the  underlying  purport  of  the  whole  letter :  — 

"  I  trust  that  after  all  this  you  have  shrunk  and 
shivered  a  little  for  me  ?  So  now,  my  dear  Harriet, 
seeing  that  your  heart  is  opened,  I  hope  that  you 
will  be  induced  to  grant  me  a  request  ?  I  own  I 
have  cunningly  tried  to  find  the  lucky  moment  for 
working  upon  one  so  unwilling  to  oblige  me  as  you 
are.  An  individual  will  come  down  from  Dublin  to 
Trim  in  the  course  of  this  month,  with  a  note  of 
instruction  from  me  to  you  and  ]\[r.  Butler.  Would 
you  be  so  good  as  to  allow  him  the  use  of  your 
drawing-room  for  one  day  ?  He  will  lodge  and  board 
in  Trim,  and  will  intrude  upon  you  only  for  one 
day.  He  brings  with  him  —  now  for  it  —  I  see  your 
countenance  change,  and  lire  lighting  in  your  eyes ! 
But  Mr.  Butler  is  calm,  thank  Heaven,  and  says 
only,  '  What  ?  What  ?  Some  nonsense  of  Maria's. 
Let  us  hear  —  poor  Maria !  she  should  be  indulged 
at  her  age  —  not  long,  you  know,  my  dear  Harriet 
—  be  patient ' 

"Only  a  box  of  curtains!     Too  late  for   redress! 


XIII.]  LATER  LIFE  205 

They  are   all  ready  to  be  put  up,  and  —  I  do  hope 
you  will  not  dislike  them,  my  dear  Harriet ! " 

A  couple  of  months  after  this  clandestine  arrival  of 
Mrs.  Butler's  new  drawing-room  curtains,  the  foregoing 
letter  was  supplemented  by  the  following  "humble 
petition,"  entreating  to  be  released  from  a  promise 
made  by  Miss  Edgeworth  on  that  occasion  to  her  sister 
and  brother-in-law,  namely,  that  she  would  never  again 
climb  up  the  ladder  to  her  beloved  "  Magpie  place." 
It  might  serve  as  a  pendant  to  the  postboy's  letter  in 
TJie  Absentee :  — 

To  the  Honourable  and  Rev.  Mrs.  R.  Butler 

"  Edgeworthstowx,  September  21 ,  1839. 

'^Dear  and  Reverend  Lady  and  Sir,  —  On 
account  I  would  not  wish  to  be  troublesome  I  have 
these  two  months  and  more  forbore  to  write  to  you  on 
the  subject  ever  uppermost  in  my  thoughts,  and  that 's 
wearing  me  to  a  shadow  entirely  —  meaning  the  prom- 
ise I  made  that  was  extorted  from  me  in  an  unlucky 
moment  of  trouble,  and  Avhen  I  was  not  myself  (to  say 
myself),  which  all  here  can  witness,  and  is  willing  to 
put  their  hands  and  seals  to  —  if  required. 

"  About  the  ladder,  ma'am  !  My  leg  is  now  well,  and 
sounder  than  ever,  thanks  be  to  God,  and  your  Lady- 
ship, with  Mrs.  Edgeworth,  and  Miss  Lucy  above  all,  and 
Master  Francis,  that  well-nigh  broke  his  back  carrying 
me  up  and  down  (and  says  I  am  heavier  than  his  wife 
—  lady,  I  mean).  God  bless  him,  for  he  says  moreover 
that  it 's  a  folly  the  promise  I  made,  and  void  ab  origine, 
I  think  he  termed  it,  being  made  under  bodily  fear,  and 
no  use  in  life,  seeing  the  ladder  is  now  stronger  than 


206  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

ever  it  was,  and  as  strong  as  any  ladder  in  Christendom. 
The  only  fault  it  ever  had,  that  occasioned  the  mis- 
chance for  which  it  was  reprobated,  was  the  hinges,  which 
is  now  off  and  condemned,  so  they  are,  out  and  out,  and 
in  the  old  iron  room  to  rust. 

"  And  in  short,  your  Ladyship,  I  expect,  will  grant 
me  a  dispensation  from  the  rash  vow  I  made  never  to 
go  up  that  ladder  again,  for  it  would  break  my  heart  to 
be  bound  to  the  letter  of  my  rash  word  that  way.  Not 
a  day  of  my  life  passes  but  I  get  in  a  fever  to  go  up 
that  ladder  to  my  Magpie  place  where  some  things  are 
a-wanting  for  ever.  And  as  to  getting  other  people's 
legs  to  go  up  for  me,  it 's  neither  here  nor  there  —  it 
can't  be  —  except  when  your  Ladyship  is  in  it,  or  one 
of  the  dear  childer  —  which  are  not  coming  that  1  can 
see  —  and  in  the  meanwhile  I  am  fretting  to  an  atomy 
for  my  liberty. 

"  I  trust  his  Keverence  will  consider  me,  and  I  leave 
it  all  to  your  Ladyship,  and  will  abide  as  in  duty 
bound  by  whatsomever  you  say.  Only  I  hope  you  '11 
earn  the  blessings  I  have  ready  to  shower  down  upon 
your  head,  if  you  grant  the  humble  prayer  and  reason- 
able remonstrance  of  your  poor  petitioner, 

Maria  —  the  long-winded." 

Not  many  signs  of  the  solemn  moralist,  or  sober- 
sided  instructress  of  youth  to  be  seen  in  all  this  !  The 
fact  is,  the  older  Maria  Edgeworth  grew  the  more  did 
those  bonds  and  ligaments  which  had  so  hampered  her 
youth  slip  away  from  her,  and  the  more  did  the  natural 
and  spontaneous  woman  rise  to  the  surface.  Towards 
the  end  of  1840  she  had  again  a  rather  serious  illness, 
and  was  forced  to  remain  for  a  considerable  time  in  bed. 


XIII.]  LATER  LIFE  207 

She  recovered,  however,  and  was  apparently  little  the 
worse  — ''  like  one  of  those  pith  puppets,"  as  she  said 
of  herself,  "  which  yon  knock  down  in  vain."  "  Even 
when  flattest  in  bed,"  she  adds,  ''  I  enjoy  hearing 
Harriet  Butler  read  to  me  till  eleven  o'clock  at  night." 
In  1840  she  stayed  for  some  time  with  her  sister,  Mrs. 
Lestock  Wilson,  in  North  Audley  Street,  and  saw,  and 
met,  and  talked  with  everybody  who  was  worth  seeing, 
meeting,  and  talking  with,  at  the  moment  in  London. 
It  was  on  this  occasion  that  Sydney  Smith  remarked 
of  her  — "  She  does  not  say  witty  things,  but  such 
a  perfume  of  wit  runs  through  all  her  conversation 
as  makes  it  very  brilliant " ;  a  very  fine  compliment, 
and  from  an  unquestionable  judge  of  the  matter  in 
hand.  She  breakfasted  with  Rogers,  who  also  invited 
a  special  dinner-party  to  meet  her.  She  saw  the  young 
Queen  open  Parliament,  and  seems  to  have  lacked  little 
or  nothing  of  her  former  vigour.  It  was,  however,  her 
last  visit  to  London.  After  her  return  home  the 
shadows  began  perceptibly  to  thicken,  and  before  long 
became  too  dense  for  even  her  buoyancy  to  surmount. 
In  1846  her  brother  Francis  died,  and  two  years  af- 
terwards, in  1848,  a  yet  greater  sorrow  befell  her  in 
the  loss  of  her  favourite  sister,  Fanny,  Mrs.  Lestock 
Wilson.  Darker  and  deeper  almost  than  even  these 
personal  sorrows  was  the  sorrow  and  the  tragedy  of  the 
entire  country.  The  great  Irish  Famine  was  no  tem- 
porary, no  transitory  event.  On  the  contrary  it  hung 
for  years,  leaden,  heavy,  unescapable,  over  the  whole 
of  Ireland.  Like  all  other  decent  Irish  families,  the 
Edgeworths  denuded  themselves  of  everything,  down 
to  the  barest  necessities  of  life,  and  all  who  were 
able  to  do  so  worked   day  and   night   at   the   relief 


208  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

of  distress.  As  for  Maria,  her  mere  name  proved  in 
those  dark  days  to  be  a  perfect  tower  of  strength. 
She  was  herself  greatly  touched  and  pleased  by  the 
readiness  with  which  her  appeals  for  help  were  responded 
to  in  all  directions.  Amongst  many  such  contributions 
a  hundred  and  fifty  barrels  of  flour  and  rice  reached  her 
from  the  children  of  Boston,  labelled  simply,  "  To  Miss 
Edgeworth  for  her  Poor."  The  very  porters  who  had 
to  carry  up  these  barrels  of  flour  and  rice  refused,  we 
are  told,  to  be  paid,  and  a  woollen  comforter  had  in 
consequence  to  be  knitted  for  each  of  them  by  her 
own  still  active  fingers. 

She  had  now  crossed  the  rubicon  of  eighty,  but  in 
spite  of  this  insurmountable  fact,  and  of  her  many 
sorrows,  public  no  less  than  private,  her  powers  of  en- 
joyment seem  to  have  been  still  almost  as  strong  as 
ever.  ''This  first  of  January,"  she  wrote  in  1849, 
"  was  my  eighty-second  birthday,  and  I  think  I  have  as 
much  enjoyment  from  books  as  ever  I  had  in  my  life." 
A  notable  new  one,  the  first  instalment  of  Macaulay's 
History,  reached  her  about  this  time,  and  she  wrote  a 
long  letter  on  the  subject  to  Dr.  Holland,  which  appears 
to  have  been  sent  on  to  the  historian,  for  we  hear  of  his 
expressing  pleasure  in  her  enjoyment —  "  a  small  return 
for  the  forty  years  of  enjoyment,"  so  he  worded  it, 
which  he  had  had  from  her.  Even  the  old  childish 
love  of  small  adventures  — climbing  to  forbidden  places, 
and  the  like  —  seems,  incredible  as  it  may  appear,  to 
have  survived  with  her  to  the  very  end.  In  the  last 
stage  of  all,  when  she  was  actually  within  a  couple  of 
weeks  of  her  death,  we  find  her  once  more  having  to 
confess  to  the  crime  of  having  scrambled  up  to  the  top 
of  a  ladder,  this  time  for  the  purpose  of  winding  the 


xiii.]  LATER  LIFE  209 

family  clock.  "  I  am  heartily  obliged  and  delighted  by 
your  being  such  a  goose,  and  Eichard  such  a  gander," 
she  writes  in  a  letter  to  her  sister,  Mrs.  Butler,  of  May 
1849,  "as  to  be  frightened  out  of  your  wits  by  my 
going  up  the  ladder  to  take  off  the  top  of  the  clock. 
.  .  .  Prudence  of  31.  E.,  Act  II.  I  summoned  Cassidy, 
let  me  tell  you,  and  informed  him  that  /  was  to  wind 
the  clock,  but  that  he  was  promoted  to  take  off  the  top 
of  it  for  me.  —  And  then  up  I  went,  and  I  wound  the 
clock,  just  as  I  had  done  before  you  were  born  !  " 

This  letter  was  written  upon  the  seventh  of  the 
month,  and  exactly  one  fortnight  later,  upon  the  morn- 
ing of  the  twenty-second  of  May  1849,  Miss  Edgeworth 
was  seized  by  a  sudden  sensation  of  pain  about  the 
region  of  the  heart,  not  apparently  very  severe.  A  few 
hours  later  she  died,  as  she  had  always  wished  to  do, 
in  the  arms  of  her  faithful  stepmother.  Over  such  a 
death  no  reasonable  biographer  could  desire,  or  could 
be  expected,  to  grow  gloomy. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

CONCLUSION 

Amongst  tlie  inhabitants  of  the  republic  of  Letters 
there  are  a  certain  number  who  are  never  merely 
writers  to  us.  Their  books  may  be  very  good,  or  only 
moderately  good,  but  for  us  they  have  a  life  wholly 
independent  of  the  life  of  their  books.  We  seem  to 
know,  or  to  have  known  them  personally,  and  their 
writings  form  only  a  part,  often  quite  a  small  part, 
of  the  general  sense  of  liking  and  sympathy  which 
awakens  in  us  at  the  mention  of  their  names.  Amongst 
English  writers  two  names  will  always  stand  in  the 
very  front  of  any  such  list — the  names  of  Charles  Lamb 
and  of  Walter  Scott.  Which  of  these  two  possesses  the 
most  of  that  endearing  quality  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
say.  As  regards  the  first,  not  only  do  we  feel  towards 
him  as  we  feel  towards  few  whom  we  have  person- 
ally known,  but  we  refuse  to  admit  the  most  palpable, 
the  most  self-admitted  of  his  failings.  We  shut  our 
eyes  to  them,  as  we  do  not  by  any  means  invariably 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  failings  of  those  who  are  our 
nearest  and  our  dearest.  He  is  Charles  Lamb,  and 
under  the  magic  shelter  of  that  name,  even  a  little 
after-dinner  tippling  seems  to  be  a  trait  rather  attrac- 
tive on  the  whole  than  otherwise. 

In  the  case  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  the  affection  which 
he  awakens  in  his  readers  is  often  a  great  deal  too 

210 


CHAP.  xiT.]  CONCLUSION  211 

acute  for  pleasure.  There  are  moments  in  those  last 
years  of  his  which  we  can  hardly  bear  to  think  of, 
which  sting  us  like  the  remembrance  of  our  own  unfor- 
gotten  sorrows,  and  we  are  glad  to  remember  that  more 
than  eighty  healing  years  have  rolled  by  since  then. 
A  few  other  writers  may  be  found  occupying  niches 
here  and  there  in  this  especial  list,  yet  curiously  few, 
when  we  consider  how  long  that  list  is  from  any  other 
standpoint.  This  little  book  will  have  been  written  to 
remarkably  small  purpose,  if  I  have  not  made  it  clear 
that  amongst  this  short  list  of  eminently  likable  writers 
Maria  Edgeworth  appears  to  me  to  stand.  Such  a 
view  is  so  entirely  a  personal  one,  that  no  sense  of 
presumption  can  attach  to  the  proclaiming  of  it.  She 
was  not — even  a  partial   biographer  must   be  frank 

—  in  the  first  flight  of  great  writers,  for  although  in 
Castle  Rackrent  she  made  a  magnificent  start,  the 
promise  which  that  book  contained  cannot  be  said  to 
have  been  ever  thoroughly  fulfilled.     She  lost  herself 

—  elle  se  perd  daris  votre  triste  utiliti,  as  Madame  de 
Stael  expressed  it,  in  writing  to  their  joint  friend 
M.  Dumont,  —  and  she  never  thoroughly  found  herself 
again.  What  she  might  have  been  had  her  surround- 
ings been  different,  it  is  idle  now  to  speculate,  and 
we  must  be  content  therefore  to  take  her  as  she  was. 
For  my  part  I  am  abundantly  content,  seeing  that  I 
regard  her  as  one  of  the  very  pleasantest  personalities 
to  be  met  with  in  the  whole  wide  world  of  books. 

It  is  too  trifling  a  point  perhaps  to  mention,  but 
it  can  hardly  have  failed,  I  think,  to  strike  readers 
of  Miss  Edgeworth's  letters,  how  exceptionally  free 
they  are  from  the  element  of  censoriousness  or  scandal 

—  uniquely  so,  perhaps,  in  the  case  of  letters  equally 


212  MARIA  EDGEWORTH  [chap. 

lively,  and  equally  abounding  in  social  details.  That 
gift  of  "  sportive  but  cutting  mklisayice "  which  Lord 
Jeffrey  commended  her  for  bestowing  upon  her  fine 
ladies,  had  certainly  not  been  bestowed  upon  herself, 
or,  if  so,  she  succeeded  in  keeping  it  singularly  dark. 
Turning  over  the  volumes  of  her  letters  again,  and 
trying  to  discover  something  of  the  sort,  I  have  just 
alighted  upon  the  following:  "Has  it  escaped  your 
notice  "  —  she  is  writing  in  the  year  1814  —  "  that  the 
Venus  de  Medici  and  the  Apollo  Belvedere  are  both 
missing  together?  I  make  no  remarks!  I  hate  scan- 
dal !  —  at  least  I  am  less  fond  of  it  than  Mrs. , 

but !  .  .  ." 

This  libellous  insinuation  against  the  admittedly 
speckless  virtue  of  the  Venus  de  Medici  is  about  the 
only  clear  case  of  mklisance  which  I  have  so  far  been 
able  to  discover!  A  joke,  on  the  other  hand,  Miss 
Edgeworth  dearly  loved,  and  would  sometimes  keep 
a  favourite  one  going  for  a  length  of  time  which 
her  correspondents  may  have  found  trying,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  French  washerwoman  —  sounle  et  mnette  — 
whom  she  assured  her  sister  Lucy  that  she  was  bring- 
ing back  with  her  to  Edgeworthstown  from  Paris,  and 
who  turned  out  to  be  a  toy.  It  was  a  part  of  her 
youthfulness,  that  amazing  youthfulness,  which  made 
her,  at  long  past  seventy,  a  source  evidently  of  no 
small  perplexity  to  the  middle-aged  brothers  and  sisters, 
several  of  whom  were  considerably  more  than  thirty 
years  her  juniors.  A  saying  has  been  often  quoted  of 
her  friend  and  correspondent,  Mrs.  Somerville,  who 
when  between  sixty  and  seventy  years  old,  declared 
upon  some  occasion  that,  not  only  did  she  not  feel  her- 
self to  be  an  old  woman,  but  had  occasionally  passing 


XIV.]  CONCLUSION  213 

doubts  as  to  whether  she  was  actually  a  grown-vp 
woman.  A  similar  assertion  might  quite  well  have  been 
made  by  Miss  Edgeworth  of  herself.  In  the  two 
ladder  incidents,  and  the  letters  arising  out  of  them, 
we  have  excellent  instances  of  this  indomitable  youth- 
fulness  —  this  childlike  enjoyment  of  the  very  smallest 
adventures  —  traits  which  with  her  lasted,  not  merely 
until  she  was  past  eighty  years  of  age,  but  actually,  as 
has  been  seen,  to  within  a  few  days  of  her  death. 

There  seems  nothing  further  to  add.  If  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  early  years  in  Ireland  included  a  few  exciting 
days,  she  lived  for  the  most  part  a  remarkably  quiet 
life ;  a  life,  moreover,  which  was  so  exclusively  domes- 
tic, that  it  could  hardly  have  failed  to  be  a  more  or  less 
humdrum  one.  Neither  has  any  attempt  been  made  in 
these  pages  to  place  her  upon  a  higher  literary  platform 
than  the  general  consensus  of  cultivated  judgment  has 
long  ago  assigned  to  her.  It  has  been  the  woman  that 
has  been  desired  to  be  shown  in  them,  rather  than  the 
author,  the  Avit,  the  moralist,  or  anything  else  of  the 
sort ;  an  exceptionally  pleasant  woman,  nay,  an  excep- 
tionally pleasant  Irishwoman ;  one  whom  few  people 
ever  grew  to  know,  without  also  growing  to  like,  and 
whom  few  ever  found  themselves  brought  into  even 
accidental  contact  with,  without  being  in  some  way 
or  other  the  better  for  it.  That,  as  regards  the  more 
obvious  and  unavoidable  relationships  of  life  —  as 
sister,  friend,  employer,  daughter  —  that  in  all  these 
respects  she  was  as  little  open  to  reproach  as  it  has 
often  been  given  to  humanity  to  attain  to,  this  will,  I 
think,  without  any  great  difficulty  be  conceded. 


INDEX 


Absentee,  The,  131,  133-6,  139. 

Adele  et  Theodore,  50. 

yEschylus,  188. 

Ainsworth  (farmer),  149. 

Alison,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  162. 

Aimer  ia,  130-1. 

Amiens,  Peace  of,  101. 

Andre,  Major,  28-9. 

Apreece,  Mrs.,  122. 

Arabian  Nights,  89. 

Arago,  158. 

Austen,  Jane,  101. 

"  Aut  Scotus,  aut  Diabolus,"  114. 


B 

Baillie,  Joanna,  124,  151. 
Baird,  Sir  David,  167. 
Ballinamuck,  battle  of,  80,  82-3. 
Barbanld,  Mrs.,  40,  150. 
Beaufort,  Miss,  68-9. 
Beddoes,  Mrs.  (sister),  102. 
Belinda,  98, 100,  104,  196. 
Berkeley,  Bishop,  14. 
Billamore,  Mrs.  ("  Kitty  "),  74,  84, 

94. 
Biot,  156. 

Blakes,  the  Miss,  3,  5. 
Breton,  M.  le.  111. 
Bridgman,  Mrs.,  22. 
Brinkley,  Dr.,  156. 
Broglie,  Duchesse  de,  156. 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  126. 


Brougham,  192. 

Buchan,  Lord,  119. 

Buonaparte,  81,  111,  120,  157,  171. 

Burke,  128,  173. 

Butler,  Mr.,  202. 

Byron, 123. 


Campbell  (poet),  167. 

Canning,  178. 

Carrol,  Pat,  95. 

Castle  Rackrent,  40,  49,  63,  86  seq., 

99,  104,  127,  129,  131,  133,  142-3, 

196,  211. 
Castlebar,  78. 
Cathcart,  Lady,  90,  92. 
Cats,  anecdote  of,  84. 
Chan  tin  e'e,  92. 
Charles  IL,  24. 
Cornwallis,  Lord,  77,  79,  80. 
Cramptou,  Sir  Philip,  169,  170-1. 
Cuvier,  156. 


D 

D'Arblay,  Madame,  125. 

Darwin,  Dr.,  11,  27,  32,  34,  41,  52, 

103. 
Davis,  Mrs.,  7,  15. 
Davy,  Sir  H.,  122,  181. 
Day,  "little  Thomas,"  42. 

Mrs.,  13. 

Thomas,  10,   28,   32,  37,   100, 

148-50. 


215 


216 


INDEX 


De  Candolle,  158. 

Defoe,  87. 

Delessert,  Madame,  108. 

Dillon,  Lord  and  Lady,  190. 

Dumont,  M.,  148,  151,  154,  211. 

Dun,  The,  130. 

E 

Early  Lessons,  50,  196. 

Edelcrantz,  M.,  109,  110,  180. 

Edgeware,  19. 

Edgeworth,  Abbe,  111,  155. 

Bishop,  19. 

Captain  John,  20,  22. 

Charlotte  (sister),  105-6,  111, 

118-19. 

Fanny  (Mrs.  Wilson),  155, 181, 

202,  207. 

Francis  (brother),  207. 

Francis  (Clerk  of  the  Hana- 

per),  19. 

Francis  ("Protestant  Frank"), 

25. 

Harriet    (Mrs.    Butler),    155, 

162,  170,  175,  202. 

Henry  (brother),  47,  50,  119- 

20. 

Honora  (sister) ,  59. 

Honora    (half-sister),  148-50, 

173,  181. 

Lady,  24. 

Lovell  (brother) ,  60,  112. 

Lucy  (sister),  174,  181,  212. 

Maria:    birth,   3;    childhoi>d, 

4 ;  life  in  Ireland,  2,  3,  5,  44  seq., 
59,  62  seq.,  104,  116,  118,  121, 
213  ;  at  school,  6-9  ;  learns 
French,  7 ;  first  literary  efforts, 
8,  49,  50;  eye  troubles,  9,  14, 
146  ;  visits  Mr.  Day  at  An- 
ningsly,  10,  13 ;  continues  her 
father's  history  of  their  family, 
37;  children's  tales,  47,  49,  50; 
associated  with  her  father's 
work,  47, 50, 121 ;  her  Irish  books, 


49,  92,  127,  141,  143 ;  advantages 
as  novelist,  47,  48, 101 ;  residence 
at  Clifton,  60,  103;  relates  in- 
cidents of  Irish  rebellion,  73; 
escapes  from  rebels,  74,  82  ; 
success  of  Castle  Rackrent,  91; 
tour  on  Continent,  106;  visit  to 
Paris,  107 ;  receives  offer  of 
marriage,  109;  escapes  from 
France  on  outbreak  of  war,  112; 
friendship  with  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
113  ;  influence  on  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  115;  visits  to  Edinburgh, 
113;  family  life,  113,  116;  visits 
London  (1813),  121,  123;  lionised 
in  London,  124-5  ;  her  shorter 
stories,  132;  death  of  her  father, 
145-6  ;  prepares  her  father's 
Memoirs,  147,  151  ;  visit  to  Bo- 
wood,  148,  159  ;  Memoirs  of  her 
father  reviewed  by  Quarterly, 
152,  154,  160  ;  returns  to  Edge- 
worthstown,  155  ;  visits  Conti- 
nent with  her  two  sisters,  155; 
supper  at  College  de  France,  156 ; 
goes  to  Switzerland,  158 ;  visit  to 
Lyons,  159  ;  takes  an  apparte- 
ment  garni  in  Paris,  159 ;  returns 
home,  159  ;  in  London,  159-60; 
visit  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  with  her 
sisters,  162  seg.;  illness  in  Scot- 
land, 167  ;  returns  to  Ireland, 
168 ;  visit  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  to 
Edgeworthstown,  169;  joins  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  party  to  Killar- 
ney,  175;  again  visits  London, 
184;  expedition  to  west  of  Ire- 
laud,  184  ;  acquaintance  with 
Martins  of  Ballinahinch,  185  ; 
visits  Connemara,  187  ;  visits 
Armagh,  191 ;  her  last  novel,  194 ; 
visitors,  199-201  ;  marriage  of 
sisters,  102, 202 ;  serious  fall  from 
ladder,  202  ;  illness,  206  ;  stays 
with  her  sister  in  London,  207; 
sees  Queen  Victoria  open  Parlia- 


INDEX 


217 


ment,  207 ;  appeals  for  help  in 
distress  of  Irish  famine,  208  ; 
death,  209;  as  gardener,  46;  be- 
nevolence, 183, 197 ;  Dapple  (her 
pony),  47,  72,  83-4;  expenditure, 
197  ;  family  history,  19  seq. ; 
father's  influence  on  her  ■writ- 
ings, 18,  39,  50,  86,  91,  99, 115-16, 
135,  147,  160  ;  her  heroes  and 
heroines,  57;  invention  of  "The 
Novel  with  a  Purpose  "  attrib- 
uted to  her,  87  ;  lack  of  imagina- 
tion. 39;  letters,  40,  45,  49,  60-3, 
68,  70, 72,  83,  86,  89,  92,  94,  96, 106, 

108,  111,  119-20,  121,  133,  151, 
158,  160,  181,  185,  188,  190-1, 
195,  202  seq.,  208,  211;  love  of  a 
joke,  212  ;  love  of  children  and 
childish  adventures,  198,  208  ; 
personal  appearance,  16,  123-4; 
portrait,  17  note ;  position  as  a 
personality,  211-13 ;  as  a  writer, 
211;  prices  of  copyrights,  196; 
style,  40 ;  submissiveness  to  her 
father,  1,  18;  utilitarianism,  9, 
18,  49,  87,  181,  211  ;  youthful- 
uess,  212. 

Edge  worth,    Mrs.     (mother,    n^e 

Elers),  3,  32. 
Mrs.  {nee  Elizabeth  Sneyd), 

12,  13,  68. 
Mrs.  (nee  Honora  Sneyd),  4, 

7,  10,  11,  13,  28,  32. 
Mrs.   (stepmother,   author  of 

Memoir),  08-9,  74,   82,  91,   103, 

109,  118,  122,  135,  145,  203, 
209. 

Mrs.  Anna,  182. 

Mrs.  Jane,  19-21. 

Pakenham,  186. 

Richard  (the  younger) ,  3,  30-2, 

102. 


63,  160;  prefaces  to  her  books, 

115,  129,  130-1. 
Edgeworth,  Sneyd  (brother),  190. 

Sophy  (half-sister),  162,  167. 

William  (brother),  166,  184. 

family,  2,  3,  18,  37,  52,  72,  82. 

Edgeworthstown,    5,    46,   63,    73, 

118. 
Elers,  Mr.,  3,  26. 
Emille  de  CouUoiges,  132. 
Ennui,  130,  136. 
Euripides,  188. 
Eustace,  Major,  83. 


Famine,  the,  189,  207. 
Fashionable  Tales,  98,  130-1,  134. 
Feuelon,  107. 
FitzGerald,  Edward,  201. 
Forester,  129. 
Forgive  and  Forget,  57. 
Foster,  Leslie,  182. 
Francis,  Sir  Philip,  173. 
"Frank,"  52-4,  56-7,  196. 
French  Invasion  of  Ireland,  75  seq. 
Revolution,  72. 


Fry,  Mrs.,  160. 


G 


—  Richard  Lovell  (father),  1,  3, 
18 se?.,  31  seg.,  45,50,  62  se^.,  102, 
106,  108,  111,  121-4,  134,  144-6; 
share  in  his  daughter's  works. 


Gautier,  Madame,  108,  157. 
Geneva,  158. 

Genlis,  Madame  de,  50,  111. 
Gladstone,  154. 
Goldsmith,  128. 
Granard,  Lady,  157. 
Griselda,  The  Modern,  132. 


H 

Hall,  Mr.  and  Mrs. (Irish  novelists), 

200. 
Hamilton,  Major-General,  77. 


218 


INDEX 


Hare,   Mr.,  1,  6,   17,   34,   48,   108, 

182. 
Harry  and  Lucy,  160,  197. 
Helen,  194-5,  197. 
Heriot,  166. 
Herschel,  182. 
Holcroft,  Mr.,  50. 
Holland,  Dr.,  208. 
Humboldt,  156. 
ntmt,  Leigh,  181. 


Ireland,  1,  2,5, 19se5.,44r-6,  62  seq., 

130,  194. 
Irish  famine,  189,  207. 

landlords,  141. 

literature,  127. 

Parliament,  102. 


Rebellion,  44,  69,  71. 


Jeffrey,  Lord,  101,  173,  194,  212. 
Jepbson,  Mr.,  170-1,  173. 
Johnson  (publisher),  134,  196. 

Dr.,  170. 

Josephine,  Empress,  158. 
Jourdain,  Camille,  109. 
Junius's  Letters,  173. 


K 

Killala,  Bishop  of,  75. 
King,  Mrs.  (sister),  102. 
Kosciusko,  109. 


La  Harpe,  111. 

Lake,  General,  77-8. 

Lamb,  Charles,  210. 

Lansdowne,  Lord  and  Lady,  148, 

151. 
LatafSere,  Mr.,  8. 


Lataffiere,  Mrs.,  6,  7. 

Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  (Scott), 

114." 
Lazy  Lawreyice,  57. 
Letters  to  Literary  Ladies,  50, 196. 
Life  (by  Miss  Zimmern),  2,  48. 
Life  and  Letters  (by  Hare),  1,  6, 

17,  34,  48,  108,  186. 
Limerick  Gloves,  The,  130. 
Lockhart,  164,  167,  169,  171,  175-8, 

195. 
Londonderry,  Lord,  160. 
Longfords,  the,  117. 
Lytton,  Lord,  194. 


M 

Macaulay,  Lord,  133,  178,  208. 
Molly,  192. 


Macdonald,  Marshal,  171. 
Mackiu,  63-5. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  123. 
Manmuvring,  1.30. 
Marcet,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  158. 
Martin,  Dick,  188, 

Mary,  185  seq. 

Memoir  (by  Mrs.  Edgeworth),  82, 

91,  10.3,  109,  118,  122,  135. 
Memoirs  (of  Mr.  Edgeworth),   19 

seq.,  31,  37,  147,  151-4,  159. 
Minor  Morals  (Mrs.  Smith),  86. 
Moilliet,  M.  and  Madame,  155, 158. 
Monaghan,  Charlie,  65. 
Monteagle,  Lady,  198. 
Moor,  Sergeant  ("Young  Moor"), 

64-7. 
Moore  (poet),  167. 
Moral  Tales,  129,  196. 
Morellet,  Abbe',  109. 
Mulready,  190. 


N 


Ney,  Marshal,  172. 
Nimmo,  185. 


INDEX 


219 


O 

O'Kelly,  177. 
Ormond,  92,  143-4. 
Orphans,  The,  57. 
Oudinot,  Madame,  111. 


Pakenham,  Miss,  117. 

Parent's  Assistant,  The,  50,  57, 68, 

196,  199. 
Parry,  Captain,  181. 
Pastoret,  M.  and  Madame,  109. 
Patronage,  135,  195. 
Popular  Tales,  129. 
Practical  Education,  50,  63,  103. 
Prony,  156. 
Prussian  Vase,  The,  129. 

Q 

Quarterly  Review,  47,  152. 
Quentin  Durward,  166. 


R 

Re'camier,  Madame,  109,  120, 157. 
Ritchie,  Mrs.  Richmond,  57,  198. 
Robinson,  Dr.,  191. 
Rochejacquelein,  Madame  de,  159. 
Rochfort,  Mr.,  73-4. 
Roden,  Lord,  78. 
Rogers,  207. 
Romilly,  Sir  S.,  151. 
Rosamund,  54  seq.,  196. 
Rousseau,  31,  108,  111. 
Ruxton,  Mr.,  41. 

■  Mrs.  (aunt),  61-3,  72,  86,  109, 


Sjjott,  Miss,  170. 

Sir  Walter,  58,  113,  124,  162 


1.33,  160,  181,  184. 
—  Sophy,  40,  61,  70,  83,  121, 144, 
182,  195. 


S 


seq.,  188,  210. 
Seward,  Miss  Anna,  28. 
Seymour,  Lord  H.,  84. 
Sheridan,  128,  134. 
Siddons,  Mrs.,  IGO. 
Simple  Susan,  58,  71,  198. 
Sismoudi,  158. 
Skene,  Mrs.,  166. 
Smith,  Lady,  184  seq. 

Sir  Culling,  184  seq. 

Sydney,  82,  207. 

Sneyd,  Miss  (aunt).  111,  151. 

Mr.,  8. 

Somerville,  Mrs.,  160,  212. 

Stael,  Madame  de,  120,  124-5,  158, 

211. 
Staffa,  Laird  of,  163. 
Stein,  Von,  158. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  52. 
Stock,  Dr.  (Bishop  of  Killala),  75. 
Strickland,  Mr.,  191. 
Suard,  Madame,  109. 
Sweden,  Ex-Queen  of,  157. 
Swift,  128. 


Talma,  107. 
Taylor,  General,  77. 
"Thady,"  88-9,92,  115. 
Thistlewood,  174. 
"Thrashers,"  118. 
Ticknor,  Mr.  G.,  199. 
Tuite,  Sir  E.,  19. 

Tumor  on   Crimes  and  Punish- 
ments, 66. 


Scott,  Captain,  169,  178. 


Vereker,  Colonel,  80. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  186. 
Vivian,  132. 


220 


INDEX 


W 

Waste  not,  Want  not,  57. 
Watts,  Miss,  104-5. 
Waverley  (Scott),  114. 
Wedgwood,  Mr.,  41. 
Wellesley,  Lady,  117. 
—  Sir  Arthur,  117. 
Westwood  and  Bentley,  41. 


Wilkes,  173. 

Wilkie,  190. 

Wilson,  Lestock,  149,  202. 

Wordsworth,  178,  184. 


Zimmern,  Miss,  2,  48. 


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